Default Antibiotic Order Durations for Skin and Soft Tissue Infections in Outpatient Pediatrics: A Cluster Randomized...

Antibiotic durations for uncomplicated skin/soft tissue infections (SSTI) often exceed the guideline-recommended 5-7 days. We assessed the effectiveness of a default duration order panel in the Electronic Health Record to reduce long prescriptions.

Cluster randomized trial of an SSTI order panel with default antibiotic durations (implemented 12/2021), compared to a control panel (no decision support) in 14 pediatric primary care clinics. We assessed long prescription rates from 23 months before to 12 months after order panel implementation (1/2020-12/2022). Antibiotic duration was considered long if >5 days for cellulitis or drained abscess, or >7 days for undrained abscess, impetigo, or other SSTI.

We included 1123 and 511 encounters in intervention and control clinics, respectively. In a piecewise generalized linear model, the long prescription rate decreased from 63.8% to 54.6% (absolute difference, -9.2%) in the intervention group and from 70.0% to 54.9% (absolute difference, -15.1%) in the control group. The relative change in trajectories from pre-panel to post-panel periods did not differ significantly between intervention and control groups (P = .488). Although used in only 29.4% of eligible encounters, intervention panel use had lower odds of long prescription compared to all other prescriptions (odds ratio 0.18).

We did not detect an overall impact of an order panel with default durations in reducing long antibiotic prescriptions for SSTIs. When ordered from the intervention panel, prescriptions were usually guideline-concordant. Effective strategies to make choosing a default duration more automatic are necessary to further reduce long prescriptions.