Measuring and improving the timeliness of vancomycin therapeutic drug monitoring and potential patient safety impacts

Belinda Chappell; Benita Suckling; Champika Pattullo

doi:10.1016/j.rcsop.2023.100403

Measuring and improving the timeliness of vancomycin therapeutic drug monitoring and potential patient safety impacts

Explor Res Clin Soc Pharm. 2023 Dec 17:13:100403. doi: 10.1016/j.rcsop.2023.100403. eCollection 2024 Mar.

Authors

Belinda Chappell^{1

2}, Benita Suckling¹, Champika Pattullo^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Caboolture Hospital Pharmacy Department, Metro North Health, Queensland Health, Caboolture, Queensland, Australia.
² School of Pharmacy, The Pharmacy Australia Centre of Excellence (PACE), University of Queensland, 20 Cornwall Street, Woolloongabba, Queensland 4102, Australia.
³ School of Public Health, University of Queensland, Herston, Queensland 4006, Australia.
⁴ Safety and Implementation Service, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Butterfield St, Herston, Queensland 4006, Australia.

Abstract

Background: Timely vancomycin therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) enables prompt dose adjustments and safe treatment. Local incidents prompted an investigation into the reasons for prolonged reporting times.

Objectives: To investigate the variation in reporting times of vancomycin concentrations between hospitals with and without on-site TDM processing, and patient safety implications.

Methods: Vancomycin concentration results for Hospital 1 (off-site monitoring), Hospitals 2 and 3 (both on-site monitoring) from June to December 2021 were retrospectively analysed. Retrospective data collection was repeated for Hospital 1 three months post on-site TDM commencement for comparison. Vancomycin clinical incidents at Hospital 1 were reviewed to identify examples of when delays in reporting of results potentially contributed towards adverse patient outcomes.

Results: Hospital 1 had a median reporting time of 11.13 h compared with Hospital 2 and Hospital T3 (1.73 h and 1.70 h respectively). Following the commencement of on-site TDM at Hospital 1, the reporting time reduced to 1.33 h (p < 0.001). Several incidents at Hospital 1 during the period of off-site monitoring involved delays to TDM results.

Conclusions: Off-site processing of TDM introduced significant delays in reporting of vancomycin concentrations, which was significantly improved by transitioning to onsite availability of testing. This study also highlights the impact of accurate problem identification in improving patient safety.

Keywords: On-site; Quality improvement; Reporting; Systems change; Therapeutic drug monitoring; Vancomycin.