# Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy Outcomes Metrics Assessment Survey

## TL;DR

This study surveyed healthcare professionals about metrics used in outpatient antibiotic therapy and found that while some metrics are seen as important, they are rarely tracked due to resource limitations.

## Contribution

The study identifies key outcome metrics for outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy and barriers to their collection, offering guidance for program development.

## Key findings

- Several outcome metrics were perceived as highly important but were not being collected by most programs.
- Common barriers to data collection included lack of funding, technology, and staffing.
- The findings can help guide the establishment or restructuring of OPAT programs.

## Abstract

We surveyed outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy team members to assess the importance of specific program metrics while eliciting collection barriers, which can guide establishing or restructuring programs. Several metrics were felt to be highly important but were not being collected by programs. Identified barriers included a lack of funding, technology support, and staffing.

We present the analysis of a cross-sectional, electronic survey of OPAT team members to assess program outcome metrics currently being used, the perceived importance of selected metrics, and barriers to collection. While a number of metrics were considered highly important, only a few programs were able to collect the data needed to track these metrics. Our data can provide guidance and support for establishing or restructuring OPAT programs to determine which outcome metrics to collect and track at a program level.