Anti-Infective Therapy via Infusion: Outpatient Parenteral Anti-infective Therapy (OPAT)
Outpatient Parenteral Anti-Infective Therapy (OPAT) enables at- home treatment of severe infectious diseases under certain conditions.
The Department for Infectious Diseases and Intensive Care Medicine offers to help in arranging and supporting OPAT treatment.
Find out more below.
You are here:
What is OPAT?
Some complex infectious diseases require prolonged treatment with parenteral anti-infective medication. The latter include drugs against bacteria (antibiotics), viruses (antivirals) or against fungi (antifungals), all of which cannot be sufficiently absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract. Therefore, these drugs cannot be administered orally but need to be given intravenously (IV).
IV therapy does not necessarily have to be done under inpatient conditions, but can be carried out as outpatient parenteral anti-infective therapy (OPAT) for cases meeting specific criteria. The infusion is administered at home by the patients themselves or by relatives, after appropriate training.
OPAT at the Department of Infectious Diseases and Critical Care Medicine
Our ID team arranges at-home implementation of the anti-infective therapy for patients meeting the necessary requirements. All individuals/relative involved with/caring for the patients receiving OPAT receive special training prior to start of OPAT. In order to ensure effective and safe treatment, OPAT patients must regularly present themselves at the ID clinic for outpatient parenteral anti-infective therapy, and for follow-up examinations.
We treat patients from all disciplines at our outpatient clinic within the framework of OPAT.
Contact Information
OPAT is organized through the Outpatient Clinic for Infectious Diseases.
Please find further information and contact options here.