No "One-Size-Fits All": chronic "Carryover" diagnoses dilute antibiotic prescribing rates for sinusitis among adults in primary and urgent care settings

Mary Smith; Marten Hawkins; Chananid Laikijrung; Emily Mui; William Alegria; Thomas Leung; Alex Zimmet; David Ha; Marisa Holubar

doi:10.1017/ice.2024.200

No "One-Size-Fits All": chronic "Carryover" diagnoses dilute antibiotic prescribing rates for sinusitis among adults in primary and urgent care settings

Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2025 Feb;46(2):203-205. doi: 10.1017/ice.2024.200. Epub 2024 Dec 27.

Authors

Mary Smith^#^{1

2}, Marten Hawkins^#^{1

2}, Chananid Laikijrung³, Emily Mui^{1

2}, William Alegria^{1

2}, Thomas Leung⁴, Alex Zimmet^{1

2}, David Ha^{1

2}, Marisa Holubar^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
² Stanford Health Care, Stanford, CA, USA.
³ Department of Pharmacy, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA.
⁴ Department of Pharmacy, Kaiser Permanente East Bay, Oakland, CA, USA.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) billing data used in outpatient stewardship metrics is under-described for acute and chronic sinusitis. We found that different sinusitis ICD-10 definitions impacted antibiotic prescribing rates (APRs). Chronic sinusitis ICD-10s dilute overall sinusitis APR, particularly in primary care settings and should be examined separately.

MeSH terms

Adult
Ambulatory Care Facilities
Anti-Bacterial Agents* / therapeutic use
Antimicrobial Stewardship
Chronic Disease
Female
Humans
International Classification of Diseases
Male
Middle Aged
Practice Patterns, Physicians'* / statistics & numerical data
Primary Health Care / statistics & numerical data
Sinusitis* / diagnosis
Sinusitis* / drug therapy

Substances

Anti-Bacterial Agents