Early hospital discharge for home care: clinical and economic impacts of linezolid

Abstract

The global tendency of home care system is an early hospital discharge strategy. Home care assistance promotes a reduction in operating services costs, as it minimizes the mean of length hospital stay, reduces hospital readmissions, decreases infectious complications due to prolonged hospital stays and increases patient adherence to treatment. The switch therapy, from intravenous to oral allows an early hospital discharge. Linezolid (Zyvox®) is an antibacterial agent from the oxazolidinone class, indicated for the treatment of complicated skin and soft-tissue infection (cSSTI) and nosocomial or community-acquired pneumonia. Due to its oral administration, it may be an option for home care in the treatment of patients infected with beta-lactam-resistant Gram-positive cocci. The available evidences about early hospital discharge that evaluate clinical and economic impacts of linezolid present shorter length of hospital stay and early discharge, as well as lower total cost of treatment, when compared to other treatment options. Linezolid shows an exclusive characteristic in infections with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) treatment, which is its bioavailability that is clinically similar between parenteral and oral administration, thereby allowing changes in the administration route as soon as the clinical presentation be adequate. Accordingly, it is observed that the main reason to economize is the possibility to offer an oral treatment in domiciliary care, performed, until now, only with linezolid.