London-based researchers reported a 3.3 percent decrease in antibiotic prescription rates after mailing 3,227 physicians letters that were address from England’s CMO, listed specific actions they could take to reduce unnecessary prescriptions and reporting that 80 percent of other area practices prescribed antibiotics less often than those receiving the letters.
The authors believe the letters resulted in 73,406 fewer antibiotic prescriptions being written. They also point out that letter-based interventions are inexpensive compared with face-to-face interventions, and letter-based interventions are easily scalable.
“Since the underlying data are all publicly available, feedback of this kind could be provided by many different interested parties,” they concluded. “This situation opens up the possibility that pressure for quality improvement can be exerted in a more dynamic way, by use of distributed networks rather than hierarchical structures. These datasets can also be combined with findings from the behavioral sciences to increase their effect.”
More articles on antibiotics:
Behavioral ‘nudges’ help reduce antibiotic prescriptions among physicians
What can hospitals do to take a stand against antibiotic resistance? Inside the University of Chicago Medical Center’s stewardship program
Common antibiotics linked to seizures, hallucinations for infection patients
