Methodology of this function is based on: "M39 Analysis and Presentation of Cumulative Antimicrobial Susceptibility Test Data, 4th Edition", 2014, Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. \url{https://clsi.org/standards/products/microbiology/documents/m39/}.
\item{col_testcode}{column name of the test codes. Use \code{col_testcode = NA} to \strong{not} exclude certain test codes (like test codes for screening). In that case \code{testcodes_exclude} will be ignored. Supports tidyverse-like quotation.}
\item{col_keyantibiotics}{column name of the key antibiotics to determine first \emph{weighted} isolates, see \code{\link{key_antibiotics}}. Supports tidyverse-like quotation.}
\item{type}{type to determine weighed isolates; can be \code{"keyantibiotics"} or \code{"points"}, see Details}
\item{ignore_I}{logical to determine whether antibiotic interpretations with \code{"I"} will be ignored when \code{type = "keyantibiotics"}, see Details}
\item{points_threshold}{points until the comparison of key antibiotics will lead to inclusion of an isolate when \code{type = "points"}, see Details}
To conduct an analysis of antimicrobial resistance, you should only include the first isolate of every patient per episode \href{https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17304462}{[1]}. If you would not do this, you could easily get an overestimate or underestimate of the resistance of an antibiotic. Imagine that a patient was admitted with an MRSA and that it was found in 5 different blood cultures the following week. The resistance percentage of oxacillin of all \emph{S. aureus} isolates would be overestimated, because you included this MRSA more than once. It would be \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias}{selection bias}.
To determine weighted isolates, the difference between key antibiotics will be checked. Any difference from S to R (or vice versa) will (re)select an isolate as a first weighted isolate. With \code{ignore_I = FALSE}, also differences from I to S|R (or vice versa) will lead to this. This is a reliable method and 30-35 times faster than method 2. \cr
To determine weighted isolates, difference between antimicrobial interpretations will be measured with points. A difference from I to S|R (or vice versa) means 0.5 points, a difference from S to R (or vice versa) means 1 point. When the sum of points exceeds \code{points_threshold}, an isolate will be (re)selected as a first weighted isolate. This method is being used by the Infection Prevention department (Dr M. Lokate) of the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG).