Project description:Globally, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious problem causing 700,000 deaths annually. By 2050, AMR is expected to cause approximately 10 million deaths globally each year if allowed to increase at the present rate. Many individuals have limited knowledge regarding appropriate antibiotic use and AMR. Most antibiotic use occurs in the outpatient setting, with approximately 30% of antibiotics prescribed deemed unnecessary. Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) is a means to reduce inappropriate antibiotic use and AMR. While existing AMS efforts generally focus on the inpatient setting, a significant gap is present in the outpatient setting. A common theme across various national action plans to reduce AMR is the need for education and awareness. The importance of communicating information in a manner easily comprehended by the patient in addition to productive clinician-patient dialogue cannot be overestimated. Enhancing the public's and patients' AMS health literacy is an underrecognized approach to help address AMR. We describe Four Core Elements of Enhancing AMS Health Literacy in the Outpatient Setting, utilizing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's framework: (1) leadership commitment, (2) intervention/action, (3) tracking/reporting, and (4) education/expertise. We call upon leaders in outpatient settings to embrace this approach to curb inappropriate antimicrobial use.
Project description:BackgroundFluoroquinolones are antibiotics prescribed in the outpatient setting, though they have serious side effects. This study evaluates the impact of stewardship interventions on total and inappropriate prescribing of fluoroquinolones in outpatient settings in a large county hospital and health system.MethodsIn an effort to decrease inappropriate outpatient fluoroquinolone usage, a multimodal antimicrobial stewardship initiative was implemented in November 2016. Education regarding the risks, benefits, and appropriate uses of fluoroquinolones was provided to providers in different outpatient settings, Food and Drug Administration warnings were added to all oral fluoroquinolone orders, an outpatient order set for cystitis treatment was created, and fluoroquinolone susceptibilities were suppressed when appropriate. Charts from October 2016, 2017, and 2018 were retrospectively reviewed if the patient encounter occurred in primary care clinics, emergency departments, or urgent care centers within Parkland Health & Hospital System and a fluoroquinolone was prescribed. Inappropriate use was defined as a fluoroquinolone prescription for cystitis, bronchitis, or sinusitis in a patient without a history of Pseudomonas aeruginosa or multidrug-resistant organisms and without drug allergies that precluded use of other oral antibiotics.ResultsTotal fluoroquinolone prescriptions per 1000 patient visits decreased significantly by 39% (P?<?.01), and inappropriate fluoroquinolone use decreased from 53% to 34% (P?<?.01). More than 90% of inappropriate fluoroquinolone prescriptions were given for cystitis, while bronchitis and sinusitis accounted for only 4.4% and 1.6% of inappropriate indications, respectively.ConclusionA multimodal stewardship initiative appears to effectively reduce both total and inappropriate outpatient fluoroquinolone prescriptions.
Project description:ObjectiveTo establish an antimicrobial stewardship program in the outpatient setting.DesignPrescribers of antimicrobials were asked to complete a survey regarding antimicrobial stewardship. We also monitored their compliance with appropriate prescribing practices, which were shared in monthly quality improvement reports.SettingThe study was performed at Loyola University Health System, an academic teaching healthcare system in a metropolitan suburban environment.ParticipantsPrescribers of antimicrobials across 19 primary care and 3 immediate- and urgent-care clinics.MethodsThe voluntary survey was developed using SurveyMonkeyand was distributed via e-mail. Data were collected anonymously. Rates of compliance with appropriate prescribing practices were abstracted from electronic health records and assessed by 3 metrics: (1) avoidance of antibiotics in adult acute bronchitis and appropriate antibiotic treatment in (2) patients tested for pharyngitis and (3) children with upper respiratory tract infections.ResultsPrescribers were highly knowledgeable about what constitutes appropriate prescribing; verified compliance rates were highly concordant with self-reported rates. Nearly all prescribers were concerned about resistance, but fewer than half believed antibiotics were overprescribed in their office. Among respondents, 74% reported intense pressure from patients to prescribe antimicrobials inappropriately. Immediate- and urgent-care prescribers had higher rates of compliance than primary-care prescribers, and the latter group responded well to monthly reports and online educational resources.ConclusionsIntense pressure from patients to prescribe antimicrobials when they are not indicated leads to overprescribing, an effect compounded by the importance of patient satisfaction scores. Compliance reporting improved the number of appropriate antibiotics prescribed in the primary care setting.
Project description:Antimicrobial resistance is escalating and triggers clinical decision-making challenges when treating infections in patients admitted to intensive care units (ICU). Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) may help combat this problem, but it can be difficult to implement in critical care settings. The implementation of multidisciplinary AMS in ICUs could be more challenging than what is currently suggested in the literature. Our main goal was to analyze the reduction in duration of treatment (DOT) for the most commonly used antibacterial and antifungal agents during the first six months of 2014, and during the same period two years later (2016). A total of 426 and 424 patient encounters, respectively, were documented and collected from the intensive care unit's electronic patient record system. Daily multidisciplinary ward rounds were conducted for approximately 30?40 min, with the goal of optimizing antimicrobial therapy in order to analyze the feasibility of implementing AMS. The only antimicrobial agent which showed a significant reduction in the number of prescriptions and in the duration of treatment during the second audit was vancomycin, while linezolid showed an increase in the number of prescriptions with no significant prolongation of the duration of treatment. A trend of reduction was also seen in the DOT for co-amoxiclavulanate and in the number of prescriptions of anidulafungin without any corresponding increases being observed for other broad-spectrum anti-infective agents (p-values of 0.07 and 0.05, respectively).
Project description:Outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) is overused in cases where highly bioavailable oral alternatives would be equally effective. However, the scope of OPAT use for children nationwide is poorly understood. Our objective was to characterize OPAT use and clinical outcomes for a large population of pediatric Medicaid enrollees treated with OPAT.We analyzed the Truven MarketScan Medicaid claims database between 2009 and 2012. An OPAT episode was identified by capturing children with claims data indicating home infusion therapy for an intravenous antimicrobial. We characterized OPAT use by describing patient demographics, diagnoses, and antimicrobials prescribed. We categorized an antimicrobial as highly bioavailable if ?80% systemic exposure was expected from the peroral dose. We also determined the percentage of OPAT recipients in whom a follow-up healthcare encounter occurred during the OPAT episode in either the emergency department or as a hospital admission. We reviewed the primary diagnoses associated with these healthcare encounters to determine whether it was related to OPAT.We identified 3433 OPAT episodes in 2687 patients. A total of 4774 antimicrobials were prescribed during these episodes. Ceftriaxone and vancomycin were the most commonly prescribed antimicrobials. Highly bioavailable antimicrobials accounted for 34% of antimicrobials used for OPAT. An emergency department visit or hospital admission occurred during 38% of OPAT episodes, among which 61% were OPAT-related.The high rate of medical encounters associated with OPAT in this cohort and the common prescribing of highly bioavailable antimicrobials underscore the opportunities for antimicrobial stewardship of pediatric OPAT.
Project description:Antimicrobial resistance is increasing; however, antimicrobial drug development is slowing. Now more than ever before, antimicrobial stewardship is of the utmost importance as a way to optimize the use of antimicrobials to prevent the development of resistance and improve patient outcomes. This review describes the why, what, who, how, when, and where of antimicrobial stewardship. Techniques of stewardship are summarized, and a plan for implementation of a stewardship program is outlined.
Project description:Stabilizing the emerging resistance of antibiotics depends on our ability to practise appropriate antimicrobial stewardship (AMS). Over 90% of antibiotics dispensed for human use are prescribed in community health care settings rather than in hospitals, with the main prescribers being family physicians, dentists, pharmacists and nurse practitioners working across a broad range of private offices, family health teams, urgent care clinics, emergency departments and long-term care homes. To improve the reach of AMS in community health care settings, the Public Health Agency of Canada partnered with Choosing Wisely Canada in 2017 to develop a focused campaign titled Using Antibiotics Wisely. This campaign is led by the prescribers of antibiotics themselves, who work in community health care settings and are better equipped to identify the specific changes that would support more appropriate use of antibiotics. This article describes these practice changes, the strengths and challenges of Using Antibiotics Wisely and future opportunities to further advance AMS across community health care settings.
Project description:The relationship between antibiotic stewardship and population levels of antibiotic resistance remains unclear. In order to better understand shifts in selective pressure due to stewardship, we use publicly available data to estimate the effect of changes in prescribing on exposures to frequently used antibiotics experienced by potentially pathogenic bacteria that are asymptomatically colonizing the microbiome. We quantify this impact under four hypothetical stewardship strategies. In one scenario, we estimate that elimination of all unnecessary outpatient antibiotic use could avert 6% to 48% (IQR: 17% to 31%) of exposures across pairwise combinations of sixteen common antibiotics and nine bacterial pathogens. All scenarios demonstrate that stewardship interventions, facilitated by changes in clinician behavior and improved diagnostics, have the opportunity to broadly reduce antibiotic exposures across a range of potential pathogens. Concurrent approaches, such as vaccines aiming to reduce infection incidence, are needed to further decrease exposures occurring in 'necessary' contexts.
Project description:BackgroundAlthough widely accepted for adults, the safety of outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) in very old patients has not been examined.MethodsNonagenarians (age ≥90 years) discharged from the hospital on OPAT over a 5-year period were identified from the Cleveland Clinic OPAT Registry. Three matched controls (<90 years) were selected for each nonagenarian. Times to OPAT-related emergency department (ED) visit and OPAT-related readmission were compared across the 2 groups in multivariable subdistribution proportional hazards competing risks regression models. Incidence of adverse drug events and vascular access complications were compared using negative binomial regression.ResultsOf 126 nonagenarians and 378 controls, 7 were excluded for various reasons. Among the remaining 497 subjects, 306 (62%) were male, 311 (63%) were treated for cardiovascular or osteoarticular infections, and 363 (73%) were discharged to a residential health care facility. The mean (SD) ages of nonagenarians and controls were 92 (2) and 62 (16) years, respectively. Compared with matched controls, being a nonagenarian was not associated with increased risk of OPAT-related ED visit (hazard ratio [HR], 0.77; 95% CI, 0.33-1.80; P = .55), OPAT-related readmission (HR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.28-2.16; P = .63), adverse drug event from OPAT medications (incidence rate ratio [IRR], 1.00; 95% CI, 0.43-2.17; P = .99), or vascular access complications (IRR, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.27-1.51; P = .32). Nonagenarians had a higher risk of death overall (HR, 2.64; 95% CI, 1.52-4.58; P < .001), but deaths were not from OPAT complications.ConclusionsCompared with younger patients, OPAT in nonagenarians is not associated with higher risk of OPAT-related complications. OPAT can be provided as safely to nonagenarians as to younger patients.
Project description:Implementing effective antimicrobial stewardship in long-term care facilities (LTCFs) is associated with challenges distinct from those faced by hospitals. LTCFs generally care for elderly populations who are vulnerable to infection, have prescribers who are often off-site, and have limited access to timely diagnostic testing. Identification of feasible interventions in LTCFs is important, particularly given the new requirement for stewardship programs by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). In this integrative review, we analyzed published evidence in the context of a human factors engineering approach as well as educational interventions to understand aspects of multimodal interventions associated with the implementation of successful stewardship programs in LTCFs. The outcomes indicate that effective antimicrobial stewardship in long-term care is supported by incorporating multidisciplinary education, tools integrated into the workflow of nurses and prescribers that facilitate review of antibiotic use, and involvement of infectious disease consultants.