Benefits of an outpatient antimicrobial stewardship intervention were lost after audit and feedback to clinicians was removed, according to research published online Oct. 10 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The research was published to coincide with the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDWeek), held from Oct. 8 to 12 in Philadelphia.
Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia assessed the durability of an outpatient antimicrobial stewardship intervention conducted at 18 community-based pediatric primary care practices. At 18 months after termination of audit and feedback for the intervention, antibiotic prescribing was compared at intervention and control sites.
The researchers found, in the primary study, that prescribing of broad-spectrum antibiotics decreased after a 12-month intervention of prescribing audit and feedback. Following termination of audit and feedback, the prescribing of broad-spectrum antibiotics increased over time and returned to above-baseline levels.
“Our findings suggest that extending antimicrobial stewardship to the ambulatory setting can be effective but should include continued feedback to clinicians,” the authors wrote.
