Core Elements of Antimicrobial Stewardship
Core Elements of Antimicrobial Stewardship
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Core Elements of Antibiotic Stewardship offer providers and facilities a set of seven key principles to guide efforts to improve antibiotic use and, therefore, advance patient safety and improve outcomes:
- Leadership commitment: Dedicating necessary human, financial, and information technology resources.
- Accountability: Appointing a single leader responsible for program outcomes. The 2019 update highlights the effectiveness of the physician and pharmacy co-leadership.
- Pharmacy expertise (previously "Drug Expertise"): Appoint a pharmacist, ideally as the co-leader of the stewardship program, to lead implementation efforts to improve antibiotic use.
- Action: Implement interventions, such as prospective audit and feedback or preauthorization, to improve antibiotic use.
- Tracking: Monitor antibiotic prescribing, impact of interventions, and other important outcomes like C. difficile infection and resistance patterns.
- Reporting: Regularly report information on antibiotic use and resistance to prescribers, pharmacists, nurses, and hospital leadership.
- Education: Educate prescribers, pharmacists, and nurses about adverse reactions from antibiotics, antibiotic resistance and optimal prescribing.
CDC's Core Elements of Antibiotic Stewardship
The (seven) Core Elements by setting:
Hospital Antibiotic Stewardship Programs