CMW News: Stewardship programs help prevent hospital-acquired infections
Case Management Weekly, October 22, 2008
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October 1, 2008 brought an end to CMS’ reimbursement to hospitals for patients who acquire certain reasonably preventable infections during a hospital stay.
To deal with this change and protect patients, many hospitals are implementing strategies and best practices to prevent and treat hospital-acquired infections (HAIs).
One strategy is creating an antimicrobial stewardship program made up of doctoral-level pharmacists who monitor the organization’s antibiotic use. The program involves having physicians fill out a form when ordering an antibiotic, which asks the physician questions about:
- Whether the antibiotic use is empiric or therapeutic
- What cultures were done
- What the results showed
After the form is filled out, the members of the stewardship program can review the choice of antibiotic and make suggestions as needed.
Resistance to antibiotics could be one factor contributing to increased infection rates, experts say. Therefore, having a stricter policy in regard to antibiotic use could be one way to decrease the spread of infections.
Source: TMCnet.com
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