Here are four things to know:
- The research, published Feb. 12 in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, found that the collaboration between antimicrobial stewardship physicians and pharmacists, along with the use of local antibiotic prescribing guidelines, were linked to less antibiotic use at discharge.
- The study used data from 123 VA hospitals between May 2020 and May 2021 and categorized the hospitals into three groups: high performing (less frequent prescribing of antibiotics at discharge), low performing (more frequent antibiotic prescribing at discharge) and intermediate performing.
- Out of 396,909 patient admissions across the 123 hospitals, 17.2% received post-discharge antibiotics. Thirty-seven hospitals were high performing, 22 were low performing and 64 were intermediate performing.
- Overall, researchers found that high-performing hospitals had more frequent interactions between stewardship physicians and pharmacists along with more consistently followed local prescribing guidelines.
