In a review of the initiative’s rollout, which began in 2020 across facilities in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Florida, and Arizona, the intervention was found to decrease overprescribing of antibiotics from 21.7% to 11.2%.
Prescribing antibiotics unnecessarily exacerbates antimicrobial resistance, a concern shared by nearly 90% of hospital executives.
Mayo Clinic’s outpatient antibiotic stewardship program focuses on provider education, development of a syndrome-based, pre-populated ambulatory panel and peer reporting. The health system also utilizes a provider-facing data dashboard to create transparency and a format for “self-auditing” of instances where antibiotics were deemed unnecessary.
“Outpatient antibiotic stewardship initiatives can reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescribing for Tier 3 URIs without increasing repeat respiratory healthcare contact,” Mayo Clinic researchers wrote of the implementation’s results. “Advancing age and number of comorbidities remain risk factors for persistent unnecessary antibiotic prescribing.”
