Intravenous to Oral Switch: Within Outpatient Parenteral Antibiotic Therapy (IVOST)

Discover the principles and practices supporting IVOST and COPAT.

The use of intravenous antimicrobials and complex oral antimicrobial regimes within outpatient clinical environments is helping with non-admission to and early discharge from hospital. The course will lead you through the principles underlying these therapies, how to determine their suitability, and key practices for prescribers.

This course -by experts from the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy- is for healthcare workers who prescribe and administer antibiotics. It explores the benefits and barriers of IVOST and complex oral antimicrobial therapy in the context of an OPAT service.

Healthcare workers involved in the prescribing and administration of antibiotics. The course is set at final year medical student/1st year doctor/new specialist nurse/junior pharmacist level and should therefore appeal to a wide-range of healthcare professionals.

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Healthcare workers involved in the prescribing and administration of antibiotics. The course is set at final year medical student/1st year doctor/new specialist nurse/junior pharmacist level and should therefore appeal to a wide-range of healthcare professionals.

• Explain the advantages and disadvantages of intravenous compared to oral antibiotic therapy
• Describe the need for detailed patient assessment when switching from intravenous to oral therapy in the OPAT setting
• Describe the principles of switching patients from intravenous to oral antibiotic and the processes required to safely monitor therapy in the OPAT setting
• Explore the clinical complexity of monitoring complex oral parenteral antibiotic therapy in the outpatient setting (COPAT), the characteristics of antibiotics or antibiotic regimens that require enhanced outpatient monitoring and the key components
• Evaluate the need for, and nature of, clinical governance of COPAT, to ensure high-quality service and how this can be applied to their location