Breaking barriers: A communication bundle for penicillin allergy label removal.

Background

Many barriers exist in disseminating the results of successful penicillin allergy delabels and preventing relabels.

Methods

This study used electronic faxing to directly communicate the completion of successful direct oral challenges in children hospitalized or in the emergency department to outpatient pharmacies and out-of-network primary care providers.

Results

This communication led to a decreased rate of the penicillin allergy label presence in pharmacy records, from 32% (36/112) to 12% (16/136) (p < 0.001). In conjunction with more conventional discharge communication mechanisms, allergy removal rates improved, from 61% (19/31) to 90% (18/20) (p = 0.029) for out-of-network primary care providers.

Conclusion

This study demonstrated that the reliable, simple, and time-efficient direct communication between independent health-care systems and pharmacies can be successful when implemented in a streamlined bundled approach.