Podcast 712: Cephalosporin with a Penicillin Allergy

<p><strong>Contributor: Aaron Lessen, MD</strong></p> <p><strong>Educational Pearls:</strong></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Retrospective cohort study in the Kaiser system looked at over 4 million patients receiving antibiotics to determine the effect of penicillin allergy prompts in the EHR on antibiotic prescribing</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Half of the sites removed prompts stating penicillin allergy and half kept the prompts</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Patients with penicillin allergies who received cephalosporins went up from 20% to 27% in areas where the prompt was remove</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">No difference in mortality or no new allergies found between the two groups</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Reduced the use of fluoroquinolones and clindamycin in the group without the prompt</span></li> </ul> <p><strong>References</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Macy E, McCormick TA, Adams JL, et al. Association Between Removal of a Warning Against Cephalosporin Use in Patients With Penicillin Allergy and Antibiotic Prescribing. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(4):e218367. Published 2021 Apr 1. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.8367</span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Summarized by John Spartz, MS4 | Edited by Erik Verzemnieks, MD</span></em></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Emergency Medical Minute is excited to announce that we are now offering</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">AMA PRA Category 1 credits™</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">via online course modules. To access these and for more information, visit our website at</span> <a href= "https://emergencymedicalminute.org/cme-courses/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">https://emergencymedicalminute.or