Summary
Post-prescription review of hospital antibiotic therapy may contribute to more appropriate
use. We estimated the impact of a standardised review of intravenous antibiotic therapy
three days after prescription in two internal medicine wards of a university hospital.
In one ward, we assessed the charts of patients under intravenous antibiotic therapy
using a standardised review process and provided feedback to the prescriber. There
was no intervention in the other ward. After six months we crossed the allocation
between the two wards. In all, 204 courses of antibiotic therapy were included in
the intervention periods and 226 in the control periods. Post-prescription review
led to proposals for modification in 46% of antibiotic courses. Time to treatment
modification was 22% shorter in the intervention periods compared with the control
periods (3.9±5.2 days vs 5.0±6.0 days, P=0.007). Patients included in the intervention group had lower antibiotic consumption
than patients in the control group, but the intervention had no significant impact
on the overall antibiotic consumption of the two wards.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 17, 2010
Accepted:
July 15,
2009
Received:
February 16,
2009
Footnotes
☆This study was presented in part at the 44th Annual Meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), 12–15 October 2006 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Identification
Copyright
© 2009 The Hospital Infection Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
