Emergency Department and Inpatient Community-Acquired Pneumonia: Practical Decision Making and Management Issues

Abstract

The objective of this article is to review evidence behind community-acquired pneumonia disease management in the emergency department and inpatient setting. Focus was placed on recent guidelines from the American Thoracic Society, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (Mandell et al., Clin Infect Dis 44:S27-72, 2007), and the American College of Emergency Physicians (Nazarian et al., Ann Emerg Med 54:704-31, 2009). These guidelines were used to review the use of blood cultures, empiric antibiotic selection, indications for expanded testing, site-of-care decisions, and discuss clinical parameters for outpatient discharge. This review is intended for ED physicians as well as hospital non-intensive care providers.