Intestinal microbiome disruption in patients in a long-term acute care hospital: A case for development of microbiome disruption indices to improve infection prevention

Antibiotic exposure correlated with diversity; however, other environmental and host factors not easily obtainable in a clinical setting are also known to impact the microbiota. Therefore, direct measurement of microbiome disruption by sequencing, rather than reliance on surrogate markers, might be most predictive of adverse outcomes. If and when microbiome characterization becomes a standard diagnostic test, improving our understanding of microbiome dynamics will allow for interpretation of results to improve patient outcomes.