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.

None

• Introduction to IVOST and OPAT
• Welcome to week 1
• Setting the scene
• The basics of switching from OPAT to oral antibiotics - Case 1
• Advanced switching from OPAT to oral antibiotics - Case 2
• End of Week 1
• Monitoring complex oral antibiotic therapy in an OPAT service
• Welcome to Week 2
• What is complex outpatient oral antibiotic therapy?
• Linezolid monitoring
• Referral, monitoring and follow-up
• End of Week 2
• Other complex oral antibiotics
• Welcome to Week 3
• What other complex antibiotics are available?
• End of Week 3
• Running a COPAT service
• Introduction to the final week
• The COPAT team
• Out-of-hours arrangements for COPAT patients
• Discharge and follow-up
• Clinical Governance
• End of course