The American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, in partnership with the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, released a new list of five best-practice recommendations for antibiotic administration.
The list is part of ABIM's "Choosing Wisely" campaign, which focuses on reducing the unnecessary or inappropriate use of antibiotics in an effort to curb the global problem of antibiotic resistance. With the release of its new list, the ABIM campaign will have covered more than 400 procedures and tests society partners say are overused and inappropriate, and patients and physicians need to discuss.
"Conversations about what care patients truly need is a shared responsibility among all members of the healthcare team," said Richard Baron, MD, president and CEO of the ABIM Foundation. "SHEA's 'Choosing Wisely' list will help frontline medical staff across the country engage their patients in a dialogue about what care is best for them, and what we can do to reduce waste and overuse in our healthcare system."
Here are the five latest recommendations.
• Don't continue antibiotics beyond 72 hours in hospitalized patients unless the patient has a clear evidence of infection.
• Avoid invasive devices (including central venous catheters, endotracheal tubes and urinary catheters) and, if required, use no longer than necessary — they pose a major risk for infections.
• Don't perform urinalysis, urine culture, blood culture or C. difficile testing unless patients have signs or symptoms of infection. Tests can be falsely positive leading to overdiagnosis and overtreatment.
• Don't use antibiotics in patients with recent C. difficile infection without convincing evidence of need. Antibiotics pose a high risk of C. difficile recurrence.
• Don't continue surgical prophylactic antibiotics after the patient has left the operating room.