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VIDEO: ID support in ASPs has larger impact on antibiotic use
NEW ORLEANS — Edward A. Stenehjem, MD, MSc, from the division of infectious diseases at Intermountain Medical Center in Utah, discusses his presentation on the SCORE trial, which assessed the efficacy of three antimicrobial stewardship programs with varying levels of infectious disease involvement in 15 small community hospitals. Stenehjem and colleagues found that programs with greater ID support were more likely to have a greater reduction in antibiotic use. In addition, hospitals with “actively involved stewardship programs” demonstrated a decrease in Clostridium difficile incidence.
“We concluded that is it possible to do stewardship in small community hospitals,” he says. “We feel that the more you do and the more that infectious disease is involved, the bigger impact you’re going to have on days of therapy and [C. difficile] …This needs to be an area that we need to focus on within the infectious disease community so we can bring stewardship services to these small hospitals.”
Disclosures: The study was funded by the Joint Commission and Pfizer’s Independent Grants for Learning and Change. The researchers also report receiving investigator-initiated grants from Allergan.