BACKGROUND Appropriate antibiotic use in patients with complicated urinary tract infections can be measured by a valid set of nine quality indicators (QIs). We evaluated the performance of these QIs in a national setting and investigated which determinants influenced appropriate antibiotic use. For the latter, we distinguished patient, department and hospital characteristics, including organiza...

Although antimicrobial stewardship has been shown to improve microbiologic susceptibility patterns, decrease drug toxicities, and lower overall drug costs in the inpatient setting, there are few studies assessing programs in the long-term care (LTC) setting. Implementing antimicrobial stewardship programs in LTC settings can be challenging as the LTC setting houses a unique population of frail ...

Antibiotic resistance is a well-acknowledged crisis with no clearly defined comprehensive, national corrective plan. We propose a number of interventions that, collectively, could make a large difference. These include collection of data to inform decisions, efforts to reduce antibiotic abuse in people and animals, great emphasis on antibiotic stewardship, performance incentives, optimal use of...

Background The majority of oral antibiotics are prescribed in outpatient primary and urgent care clinics for acute respiratory infections. Effective antibiotic stewardship must include proper prescribing for outpatients as well as for those in a hospital or long-term care facility. Methods Major databases, including MEDLINE and the Cochrane Library, were searched for prospective human clinica...

BACKGROUND Multidrug-resistant organisms are an emerging and serious threat to the care of patients. Long-term care facilities are considered a reservoir of these organisms partly because of the over-prescribing of antibiotics. Antibiotic use is common in long-term care facilities. Antibiotic stewardship programs have been shown to reduce antibiotic consumption in acute-care facilities. The pur...

BACKGROUND Antibiotics and proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are associated with Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). Both a computer order entry alert to highlight this association as well as antimicrobial stewardship directed prospective audit and feedback represent novel interventions to reduce the co-administration of antibiotics and PPIs among hospitalized patients. METHODS Consecutive pat...

Point Prevalence Study of Antibiotic Consumption in Sanandaj Hospitals, 2015-2017; Urgent Implications for an Stewardship Program