The Effects of a Systemwide Diagnostic Stewardship Change on West Nile Virus Disease Ordering Practices

Andrew H Karaba; Paul W Blair; Kevin Martin; Mustapha O Saheed; Karen C Carroll; Michael J Borowitz

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofz488

The Effects of a Systemwide Diagnostic Stewardship Change on West Nile Virus Disease Ordering Practices

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2019 Nov 14;6(12):ofz488. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofz488. eCollection 2019 Dec.

Authors

Andrew H Karaba¹, Paul W Blair^{1

2}, Kevin Martin³, Mustapha O Saheed⁴, Karen C Carroll⁵, Michael J Borowitz³

Affiliations

¹ Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.
² Austere Environments Consortium for Enhanced Sepsis Outcomes, Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland.
³ Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.
⁴ Department of Emergency Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.
⁵ Division of Medical Microbiology, Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.

Abstract

We report that removing the clinically insensitive West Nile virus CSF nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) from the electronic health record (EHR) test. This diagnostic stewardship intervention decreased costs and may have improved diagnostic yield.

Keywords: West Nile virus; viral diagnostics; viral encephalitis.

Grants and funding

T32 AI007291/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States