2026 Eastern States Conference

Title: Theoretical implementation of a rapid antibiotic susceptibility testing system on time to appropriate therapy: a descriptive analysis on improving patient outcomes    
Primary Author: Kirstin Wade, PharmD, MBA; Larissa Coyle, PharmD, BCPS, BCIDP; Tanner Bross, PharmD, BCPS, BCIDP 
Learning Objective:  
At the conclusion of this presentation, participants will be able to describe how a rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing system can potentially reduce the duration of broad-spectrum antibiotics.  
Background/Objective:  
Time to susceptibilities at our institution is at least 48 hours. The objective was to evaluate the theoretical time to targeted antibiotic therapy using data from the Vitek® Reveal™ system in patients previously treated for gram negative bacteremia.   
Methods:  
This was a retrospective chart review of 100 adult patients with a positive blood culture for a monomicrobial gram negative organism between January 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025. Patients were excluded if they were terminally ill, comfort care, had a secondary infection, or had organisms that could not be specifically identified utilizing the Verigene®. The primary outcome was to compare the duration of broad-spectrum antibiotics with and without the addition of the system; secondary outcomes were to identify patient outcomes that could be impacted by the system such as 30-day readmissions, length of stay, Clostridioides difficile infections. 
Results: Ninety-nine patients were included in the trial. The average time saved for all ninety-nine patients was 23.3 hours. The addition of the Vitek® Reveal™ could have benefited 42 patients. The average time saved for these 42 patients was 54.9 hours. There were 8 patients with a 30-day infection-related readmission. Only 1 patient had a Clostridioides difficile infection in the 30 days post-discharge. The average length of stay was 7.7 days. The average duration of inpatient antibiotics was 6.55 days, and the average total antibiotic duration was 14.85 days.  
Conclusions: The results of this study show that the addition of the Vitek® Reveal™ system could theoretically reduce the time to targeted antibiotic therapy. The total duration of therapy was longer than expected, and further evaluation is needed to determine how antibiotic duration can be decreased at our institution.  
Self-assessment question: The theoretical implementation of the Vitek Reveal AST system could have saved an average of how many hours of inappropriate antimicrobial therapy for the total study population?
A. 6.55 hours
B. 23.3 hours
C. 42.0 hours
D. 54.9 hours