The association of infectious diseases consultation and 30-day mortality rates among veterans with enterococcal bacteraemia: a propensity score–matched retrospective cohort study

Infectious disease consultation (IDC) has been associated with improved outcomes in several infections, but the benefit of IDC among patients with enterococcal bacteraemia has not been fully evaluated. We performed a 1:1 propensity score–matched retrospective cohort study evaluating all patients with enterococcal bacteraemia at 121 Veterans Health Administration acute-care hospitals from 2011 to 2020. The primary outcome was 30-day mortality. We performed conditional logistic regression to calculate the OR to determine the independent association of IDC and 30-day mortality adjusted for vancomycin susceptibility and the primary source of bacteraemia. A total of 12,666 patients with enterococcal bacteraemia were included; 8400 (63.3%) had IDC, and 4266 (36.7%) did not have IDC. Two thousand nine hundred seventy-two patients in each group were included after propensity score matching. Conditional logistic regression revealed that IDC was associated with a significantly lower 30-day mortality rate compared with patients without IDC (OR = 0.56; 95% CI, 0.50–0.64). The association of IDC was observed irrespective of vancomycin susceptibility, and when the primary source of bacteraemia was a urinary tract infection, or from an unknown primary source. IDC was also associated with higher appropriate antibiotic use, blood culture clearance documentation, and the use of echocardiography. Our study suggests that IDC was associated with improved care processes and 30-day mortality rates among patients with enterococcal bacteraemia. IDC should be considered for patients with enterococcal bacteraemia.