Prescribing antibiotics increases the risk of resistant infections and can lead to patient harm. From December 2019 to November 2020, 389 ambulatory practices participated in a quality improvement project using the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Safety Program for Improving Antibiotic Use Program. The goal of the intervention was to support implementation and sustainment of antibiotic stewardship into practice culture, communication, and decision-making. Practices that completed the program and submitted data showed a significant decrease of antibiotic prescribing for acute respiratory infections at program completion in November 2020.

… with traditional antibiotic stewardship programs.  … Tamma PD, Miller MA, Dullabh P, et al. JAMA Netw Open. …

This systematic review of interventions to prevent health care–associated infections identified organizational factors such as positive safety culture, hospital-wide infection control efforts, guidelines, training, auditing, feedback, and optimal staffing and ergonomics. The results suggest that reducing hospital-acquired infections requires a systems approach.

This review summarizes the literature on antimicrobial stewardship to illustrate its relationship with patient safety. Interventions to reduce unnecessary antibiotic use included guidelines for controlling Clostridium difficile infection rates, mandatory outpatient parenteral therapy consultations, and performing medication reconciliation.

… antibiotic usage that resulted in a patient death. Dr. Alison Holmes spoke about infection prevention and antimicrobial …

This commentary describes how to prevent health care–associated infections using an organizational approach.

This commentary reflects on data from the United Kingdom's National Health Service to underscore the current inadequacy of methods to measure safety. Similar to a past commentary from the United States, the authors call for more systematic data collection strategies that will better monitor and track progress in patient safety.