Current Antibiotic Stewardship Program Practices Characterized

Current infection prevention and antibiotic stewardship program practices continue to include a main focus on surveillance for multidrug-resistant organisms, according to a report published online in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.

Kathleen Chiotos, M.D., from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and colleagues conducted a survey to characterize contemporary infection prevention and antibiotic stewardship program practices across 64 health care facilities and compared them to findings from 2013.

The researchers found that active surveillance for multidrug-resistant organisms was frequently reported during both study periods; the most common organism for which surveillance was performed was methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in both 2013 and 2018 (90 and 69 percent of facilities, respectively). Surveillance for multidrug-resistant gram-negative organisms was performed in 46 percent of facilities in 2013 and in 50 percent in 2018. In 2018, 50 percent of hospitals performed active surveillance for carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriacea. Monitoring of environmental cleaning effectiveness occurred in 98 percent of facilities in 2018 compared with 80 percent in 2013. Similar trends were seen in use of ultraviolet light and hydrogen peroxide mist/vapor modalities. Antibiotic stewardship medical programs were present in 85 percent of facilities in 2013 and in 95 percent in 2018.

"Our survey demonstrates the increasingly complex role of the health care epidemiologist and antibiotic stewardship programs, including growing regulatory demands, burgeoning antibiotic resistance threats, and integration of emerging technologies into existing workflow," the authors write.

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