Iv antibiotic therapy in an outpatient setting: report of a joint venture program.

Intracare, a joint venture between infectious disease consultants and Fairfax Hospital, Virginia, represents an ambulatory model for the delivery of intravenous antibiotics on an outpatient basis. This article reviews the cost effectiveness and clinical effectiveness of the program in the first 2,096 enrollees over a 6-year period. The most commonly treated infection was osteomyelitis and the most frequently used antibiotic was ceftriaxone sodium. The infections responded satisfactorily in 89% of patients in the program. A total of 39,829 hospital days were saved, which represented a cost savings for hospital bed charges alone of $15,931,600. The authors conclude that because of changes in the hospital environment--constraints on the expansion of hospital beds, and the reservation of hospital beds for the most acutely ill patients (a future prediction resulting from an increased elderly population)--Intracare may serve as a prototype of a clinic rendering all types of outpatient care to chronically ill or less acutely ill patients who would ordinarily have been hospitalized.