Research Impacts - Antibiotic De-labeling

At St James’s Hospital, research is not just confined to labs, it’s shaping how patients experience care. One example of this research was led by a multi-disciplinary team from across the hospital involving Immunology, ICU, Pharmacy, Quality and Safety Improvement and involved the hospital’s Patient Representative Council.  

This research demonstrated the safety and effectiveness of a multi-disciplinary approach to confirming if recorded antibiotic allergies are true in critically ill patients in the ICU. 

Some documented antibiotic allergies on a patient’s record do not represent true reactions and can be safely proven or disproven with comprehensive assessment and testing. This is referred to as the de-labelling of antibiotic allergies.  

A structured approach allows for the safe removal of the antibiotic allergy label for patient who have been found not to have a true allergy This means patients can access the antibiotics they need at the right time with positive impacts across the patient journey. 

In the two years of the study, 85 patients were successfully de-labelled and feedback from patients has been positive with one noting: 

“It’s great to know I’m not allergic to penicillin. I felt silly telling people I had an allergy when I couldn’t even remember when or what happened!”  

This clinical intervention to improve patient outcomes was co-designed, delivered, and embedded in practice, taking a human-centred design approach. It also provides a framework for sustainable and positive change for other ICUs and clinical settings.

You can learn more about this by reading the research papers here and here.