Treating patients with IV antibiotics can be both costly and time consuming for patients and their caregivers.  Outpatients with soft tissue infections - cellulites, wound infections, post-operative infections, even dental infections - may find themselves travelling daily to the hospital to have their IV's checked.  And while this is a time-consuming nuisance for patients, monitoring IV antibiotic use also involves significant physician and nursing time.

Two years ago, Dr. Chris Powell of High River had a number of outpatients receiving antibiotics.  He realized that there was a lack of continuity of care because each time they visited the hospital, they saw a different physician.  As different physicians were attending the patients, it was also difficult to ascertain whether the antibiotics were making a difference. "My impression," says Powell, "was that people were being kept on antibiotics a lot longer than they needed to be and this was resulting in higher costs and inconvenience."

To address this issue, he established the Outpatient Intravenous Antibiotic Clinic in the High River Hospital in December of 2003 for High River and Nanton physicians. While no objective measurement has been done yet, with just one physician providing the care for the outpatients, nurses and coordinators feel that the clinic has resulted in improved outcomes, shorter timelines, reduced drug costs and no adverse outcomes for outpatient intravenous antibiotic patients.

"There is one physician knowledgeable about every outpatient infection that requires intravenous antibiotics whether they have a physician or not," says Dr. Ron Gorsche, another High River physician. "This service has virtually eliminated errors in diagnosis and treatment of this important and dangerous condition.  It should serve as a model."