The NH Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) Program Mid-Year Report for 2017/18 is now available.
This report contains updates on completed, planned and ongoing work being done to develop and revise clinical tools, protocols and order sets that pertain to infectious disease and antimicrobial prescribing. This report also includes an update on antimicrobial usage and cost metrics.
Through our clinical pharmacy service across Northern Health our clinical pharmacists reviewed 906 patients prescribed antimicrobials thus far for 2017/18 and identified 422 cases for optimization (aka drug therapy problems) achieving a 73% resolution rate; this is our highest resolution rate to date and is approaching our goal of greater than 80%. The top 3 scenarios involving optimization of antimicrobial therapy remain unchanged from previous reports and include:
1. An unnecessary antimicrobial was discontinued
2. Antimicrobial therapy was optimized based on culture results or recommended empiric therapy
3. Converting from IV to oral formulations.
Not all sites are currently performing dedicated AMS reviews however we will be expanding this work to include more sites over the final quarters. In quarter 2 we have seen an overall decrease in usage of targeted antimicrobials across all HSDAs and a stabilization of inpatient antimicrobial costs.
Any questions, concerns or ideas for AMS initiatives, please don't hesitate to contact the AMS program Coordinator Alicia Rahier or Medical Lead Dr. Abu Hamour.