Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy: Development, implementation and evaluation of a care model taking into account the Belgian healthcare context

Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT) is defined as the parenteral administration of antibiotics, antifungal or antiviral therapies during several days to patients who are not hospitalized. Multidisciplinary teams in- and outside Europe co-ordinate OPAT for patients diagnosed with endocarditis, prostatitis, osteomyelitis, skin- and soft tissue infections,…. Previous publications demonstrated that OPAT can reduce hospital beds and costs by the transition of care to patients homes. Besides this, OPAT can reduce the transmission of nosocomial infections in hospitals.

The goals of this research project is to implement OPAT within the Belgian health care context. This study will focus on adult patients, receiving prolonged antimicrobial therapy, administered via an intravascular catheter and will consist of 5 chapters. In the first chapter, we will gain insight into actual care processes by evaluating the number of patients eligible for OPAT and by studying intravascular catheter care in the Belgium home care context. In chapter 2 and 3 the literature on OPAT will be reviewed and a complex intervention for OPAT will be developed. In the last chapters the intervention will be implemented and evaluated by using mixed methods research.