When Worlds Collide: When What Matters Most Meets Medications in the Older Adult With Infectious Diseases

Adverse drug events (ADEs) associated with antibiotics have been implicated in 13.7% of all adult emergency department visits among those aged 20 years and older. Based on information on prescriptions dispensed from retail and long-term care pharmacies, adults aged ≥65 years had an average of 4.6 emergency department visits for ADEs associated with oral antibiotics per 10,000 dispensed prescriptions. Among the antibiotics most often associated these visits were oral sulfonamides (23.2%), penicillins (20.8%), and quinolones (15.7%) (J Gen Intern Med 2018;33:1060–1068).