ANTIMICROBIAL STEWARDSHIP
Interventions are essential if we are to improve antibiotic prescribing and management of antibiotics within all healthcare settings.
FOCUS or Antibiotic “Time outs” ensure that Antibiotics which have been started empirically while awaiting diagnostic information are reviewed once more clinical and laboratory data (including culture results) become available.
The idea of performing a review of antibiotics 48 hours after antibiotics are initiated is necessary so we can check:
- If the patient actually has an infection that will respond to antibiotics
- If so, that the patient is on the right antibiotic(s), right dose, and right route of administration.
- If we could use a less broad spectrum and more specific antibiotic to treat the infection
- How long before we need to review again
Medical Audits provide Start Smart and Focus audit tools in our Antimicrobial stewardship auditing system to enable capture of data that will prompt faster more frequent reviews and assist with education and training of staff on best practice relating to antimicrobial prescribing.
PROSPECTIVE AUDIT AND FEEDBACK
Reviews of antibiotic therapy by Antimicrobial Pharmacists and Consultant Microbiologists are extremely effective in optimizing antibiotics in critically ill patients and in those on multiple antibiotics (Toth el al, 2010).
Using TS+ as part of these prospective audits and feedback sessions more than halves the paperwork and report generation requirements of these key staff ensuring they can spend the time advising rather than double entering data.
ANTIMICROBIAL PHARMACISTS ARE KEY TO GOOD PRESCRIBING PRACTICE AND CAN NOT ONLY IMPROVE ANTIBIOTIC USE THEY CAN GENERATE HUGE SAVINGS IN THE COSTS OF ANTIBIOTIC TREATMENT.
Reviews of antibiotic therapy by Antimicrobial Pharmacists and Consultant Microbiologists are extremely effective in optimizing antibiotics in critically ill patients and in those on multiple antibiotics (Toth el al, 2010).
Some of the Interventions that can be put in place as part of Antibiotic stewardship programmes include:
- Automatic changes from intravenous to oral antibiotic
- Dose optimization and dose adjustments when the patient is assessed and results reviewed
- Identification of duplicate antibiotic therapy
- Time-sensitive automatic stop orders such as for surgical prophylaxis can be used to ensure patients are not given antibiotics they do not need
- Antibiotic-related drug-drug interactions can be identified and even prevented by regular antimicrobial pharmacist ward rounds drug chart reviews
Medical Audit’s Antibiotic Prescribing Focus auditing tool removes the need for double data entry and report preparation increasing the clinical time of Antimicrobial Pharmacists and increasing the time available to audit. This enables more effective utilisation of these very scarce resources.
Medical Audits Supports the Implementation of Antibiotic Stewardship Programmes
Using Medical Audits TS+ auditing system for antimicrobial stewardship will help you monitor compliance with your antibiotic prescribing policy and evidence compliance for clinical governance assurance
As with all Medical Audits’ systems, the data is available in real time on the audit devices AND on up to the minute digital dashboards, providing staff with feedback as soon as the audit is completed.