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IDSA honors first two institutions with new antimicrobial stewardship designation
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The Infectious Diseases Society of America recently announced that Providence Saint John’s Health Center of Santa Monica, California, and Summa Health of Akron, Ohio, are the first to receive its Antimicrobial Stewardship Centers of Excellence designation.
The Antimicrobial Stewardship Centers of Excellence (CoE) program recognizes institutions led by infectious diseases experts that achieve CDC standards for antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs). In a press release, the IDSA said the CoE program also highlights the value of stewardship “over our valuable but vulnerable drug supply.”
A workgroup of infectious diseases physicians and ID-trained pharmacists developed the core criteria for the CoE program, which build upon the CDC’s seven core elements of ASPs, according to the release. The program places emphasis on an institution’s ability to execute stewardship protocols using their electronic health records system and provide ongoing education to its medical staff.
“IDSA is committed to infectious diseases-led antimicrobial stewardship programs as an essential component in the fight against antimicrobial resistance that leads to more than 23,000 deaths per year and over $20 billion in unnecessary health care costs,” IDSA President Paul Auwaerter, MD, MBA, FIDSA, said in the release. “The IDSA Antimicrobial Stewardship Centers of Excellence program recognizes institutions who lead in establishing highly effective antimicrobial stewardship programs that help clinicians give their patients optimal anti-infective therapies.”
Health systems are invited to apply for the CoE designation and learn more about the program at www.idsociety.org/ascoe.
Disclosure: Auwaerter is president of IDSA.