Practice guidelines for community-based parenteral anti-infective therapy

This is the fourth in a series of practice guidelines commissioned by the Infectious Diseases Society of America through its Practice Guidelines Committee, The purpose of this guideline is to provide assistance to clinicians when making decisions on when and how to best administer parenteral antimicrobial therapy, The targeted providers are internists, pediatricians, family practitioners, and other providers of outpatient antiinfective therapy, Criteria for selecting the appropriate patients and settings to deliver therapy in the community are described, Panel members represented experts in adult and pediatric infectious diseases, The guidelines are evidence-based, A standard ranking system is used for the strength of the recommendations and the quality of the evidence cited in the literature reviewed, The document has been subjected to external review by peer reviewers as well as by the Practice Guidelines Committee and was approved by the IDSA Council, An executive summary and tables highlight the major recommendations. The guideline will be listed on the IDSA home page at http://www.idsociety.org.