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Standard metrics for antimicrobial use consider volume but not spectrum of antimicrobial prescribing. We developed an antibiotic spectrum index (ASI) to classify commonly used antibiotics based on activity against important pathogens. The application of this index to hospital antibiotic use reveals how this tool enhances current antimicrobial stewardship metrics. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2017;38:993–997

To assess association of pharmacist gender with acceptance of antibiotic stewardship recommendations. A retrospective evaluation of the Reducing Overuse of Antibiotics at Discharge (ROAD) Home intervention. The study was conducted from May to October 2019 in a single academic medical center. The study included patients receiving antibiotics on a hospitalist service who were nearing discharge. During the intervention, clinical pharmacists (none who had specialist postgraduate infectious disease residency training) reviewed patients on antibiotics and led an antibiotic timeout (ie, structured conversation) prior to discharge to improve discharge antibiotic prescribing. We assessed the association of pharmacist gender with acceptance of timeout recommendations by hospitalists using logistic regression controlling for patient characteristics. Over 6 months, pharmacists conducted 295 timeouts: 158 timeouts (53.6%) were conducted by 12 women, 137 (46.4%) were conducted by 8 men. Pharmacists recommended an antibiotic change in 82 timeouts (27.8%), of which 51 (62.2%) were accepted. Compared to male pharmacists, female pharmacists were less likely to recommend a discharge antibiotic change: 30 (19.0%) of 158 versus 52 (38.0%) of 137 (P < .001). Female pharmacists were also less likely to have a recommendation accepted: 10 (33.3%) of 30 versus 41 (8.8%) of 52 (P < .001). Thus, timeouts conducted by female versus male pharmacists were less likely to result in an antibiotic change: 10 (6.3%) of 158 versus 41 (29.9%) of 137 (P < .001). After adjustments, pharmacist gender remained significantly associated with whether recommended changes were accepted (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.10; 95%confidence interval [CI], 0.03-0.36 for female versus male pharmacists). Antibiotic stewardship recommendations made by female clinical pharmacists were less likely to be accepted by hospitalists. Gender bias may play a role in the acceptance of clinical pharmacist recommendations, which could affect patient care and outcomes.

A key challenge for schools throughout the COVID-19 pandemic was finding ways to monitor and prevent COVID-19 cases. While diagnostic testing and connecting students and their families to appropriate resources to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 were recommended, few schools had scalable infrastructure, including information technology systems, to implement these types of measures. This study tested a new approach to COVID-19 testing (SCALE-UP Counts) in school settings that used automated bidirectional text messages provided to the school community that alerted parents of students to COVID-19 testing options and guidance on when to test. The SCALE-UP Counts trial was designed as a Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial and final analyses compared results from parents who received intensive, fully automated, bidirectional text messaging about COVID-19 testing or usual care (control; fully automated unidirectional text messaging about COVID-19 testing), unblinded interventions. From the 16 selected schools, we enrolled all eligible participants who did not opt out of the study. The study provided schools from both arms of the trial with free at-home COVID-19 test kits. The primary outcome was the proportion of parents whose households tested for COVID-19, and the secondary outcome was the number of missed school days. The study asked parents to respond to self-report measures on testing outcomes and missed school days through web-based questionnaires. The study included 7122 parents of students from 16 schools, half of which were title 1 schools; 2588 were randomized to usual care or control and 4534 to bidirectional text messaging. The SCALE-UP Counts intervention led to increased self-reported testing when compared with the control condition (22.8% vs 13.5%, relative testing rate=1.64, 95% CI 1.31-2.02; P<.001). There was no observed difference in missed school days between the study arms (0.43 per month vs 0.28 in usual care, relative missed days rate=1.55, 95% CI 0.98-2.45; P=.06). SCALE-UP Counts worked closely with schools and the state's public health system to implement and test a scalable health information technology approach that delivered automated text messages to students' parents around COVID-19 testing and provided access to free at-home test kits. Such an approach can help facilitate COVID-19 testing among school communities, including those that provide education and resources to students and their families from racial or ethnic minorities and with low socioeconomic status. Similar health information technology approaches could be used to increase ease of access to testing, reduce testing burden, and provide tailored information on health measures in school communities for a variety of illnesses or public health concerns. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05112900; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05112900.

Estimate changes in antibiotic prescribing among advanced practice clinicians (APCs)-nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs)-compared to physicians in 2022 versus 2011 to inform antibiotic stewardship efforts. Retrospective descriptive analysis of antibiotic prescription rates for 2011 and 2022 using county-level prescription dispensing data by provider type from IQVIA Xponent® (numerator) and population census estimates (denominator). Prescribing rates among physicians and APCs (NPs and PAs) nationally, by state, and by rurality of county are reported. Overall outpatient antibiotic prescribing rates in 2022 declined by 19.2% compared to 2011, from 877 to 709 prescriptions per 1000 population. The physician rate declined by 45% (628 to 345 per 1000 population), whereas the rate for APCs rose by 104% (124 to 253 per 1000 population), particularly for NPs (148% increase from 65 to 161 per 1000 population). The increase in NP prescribing rates was distinctly higher in seven contiguous Southeastern states (163 to 393 per 1000 population from 2011 to 2022, respectively), where rates were higher within rural counties (range, 385 to 651 per 1000 population by state in 2022). APCs accounted for 1 in 3 outpatient antibiotic prescriptions in 2022, more than doubling their rate per capita over the past decade. This increase was especially prominent for NPs, particularly within the Southeast region, likely reflecting their growing role as rural primary care clinicians. Integration of APCs for outpatient antibiotic stewardship efforts is essential.

Background Watchful waiting management for acute otitis media (AOM), where an antibiotic is used only if the child’s symptoms worsen or do not improve over the subsequent 2–3 days, is an effective approach to reduce antibiotic exposure for children with AOM. However, studies to compare the effectiveness of interventions to promote watchful waiting are lacking. The objective of this study is to compare the effectiveness and implementation outcomes of two pragmatic, patient-centered interventions designed to facilitate use of watchful waiting in clinical practice. Methods This will be a cluster-randomized trial utilizing a hybrid implementation-effectiveness design. Thirty-three primary care or urgent care clinics will be randomized to one of two interventions: a health systems-level intervention alone or a health systems-level intervention combined with use of a shared decision-making aid. The health systems-level intervention will include engagement of a clinician champion at each clinic, changes to electronic health record antibiotic orders to facilitate delayed antibiotic prescriptions as part of a watchful waiting strategy, quarterly feedback reports detailing clinicians’ use of watchful waiting individually and compared with peers, and virtual learning sessions for clinicians. The hybrid intervention will include the health systems-level intervention plus a shared decision-making aid designed to inform decision-making between parents and clinicians with best available evidence. The primary outcomes will be whether an antibiotic was ultimately taken by the child and parent satisfaction with their child’s care. We will explore the differences in implementation effectiveness by patient population served, clinic type, clinical setting, and organization. The fidelity, acceptability, and perceived appropriateness of the interventions among different clinician types, patient populations, and clinical settings will be compared. We will also conduct formative qualitative interviews and surveys with clinicians and administrators, focus groups and surveys of parents of patients with AOM, and engagement of two stakeholder advisory councils to further inform the interventions. Discussion This study will compare the effectiveness of two pragmatic interventions to promote use of watchful waiting for children with AOM to reduce antibiotic exposure and increase parent satisfaction, thus informing national antibiotic stewardship policy development. Clinical trial registration NCT06034080.

We updated a descriptive analysis of national outpatient antibiotic prescribing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prescribing volume was lower during 2020 and January–June in 2021 and 2022 compared to corresponding baseline months in 2019. Prescribing approached or exceeded baseline during July–December of 2021 and 2022 for all antibiotics, especially for azithromycin.

To describe acute respiratory illnesses (ARI) visits and antibiotic prescriptions in 2011 and 2018 across outpatient settings to evaluate progress in reducing unnecessary antibiotic prescribing for ARIs. Cross-sectional study. Outpatient medical and pharmacy claims captured in the IBM MarketScan commercial database, a national convenience sample of privately insured individuals aged <65 years. We calculated the annual number of ARI visits and visits with oral antibiotic prescriptions per 1,000 enrollees overall and by age category, sex, and setting in 2011 and 2018. We compared these and calculated prevalence rate ratios (PRRs). We adapted existing tiered-diagnosis methodology for (ICD-10-CM) codes. In our study population, there were 829 ARI visits per 1,000 enrollees in 2011 compared with 760 ARI visits per 1,000 enrollees in 2018. In 2011, 39.3% of ARI visits were associated with ≥1 oral antibiotic prescription versus 36.2% in 2018. In 2018 compared with 2011, overall ARI visits decreased 8% (PRR, 0.92; 99.99% confidence interval [CI], 0.92-0.92), whereas visits with antibiotic prescriptions decreased 16% (PRR, 0.84; 99.99% CI, 0.84-0.85). Visits for antibiotic-inappropriate ARIs decreased by 9% (PRR, 0.91; 99.99% CI, 0.91-0.92), and visits with antibiotic prescriptions for these conditions decreased by 32% (PRR, 0.68; 99.99% CI, 0.67-0.68) from 2011 to 2018. Both the rate of antibiotic prescriptions per 1,000 enrollees and the percentage of visits with antibiotic prescriptions decreased modestly from 2011 to 2018 in our study population. These decreases were greatest for antibiotic-inappropriate ARIs; however, additional reductions in inappropriate antibiotic prescribing are needed.

A growing body of evidence suggests that antibiotic allergy labels as documented in medical records are a risk factor for poor clinical outcomes. In this systematic review, we aimed to determine how antibiotic allergy labels influence 3 domains: antibiotic use and exposure, clinical outcomes, and healthcare-related costs. We performed a systematic review to identify studies reporting outcomes in patients with antibiotic allergy labels compared to nonallergic counterparts. The search included PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane CENTRAL, EBSCO, Cochrane Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects and Web of Science. Two reviewers independently screened studies for inclusion and abstracted data. Studies were graded using the Newcastle-Ottawa quality assessment scale. Study outcomes included antibiotic use, clinical outcomes, and economic outcomes. In total, 41 studies met our criteria for inclusion. These studies varied in medical specialty, patient population, healthcare delivery system, and design, but most were conducted among adults age >18 years (85%) in the inpatient setting (82.5%). Among 34 studies examining antibiotic exposure, 32 (94%) found that patients with antibiotic allergy labels received more broad-spectrum antibiotics. Moreover, 31 studies examined clinical outcomes such as length of hospitalization, ICU admission, hospital readmission, multidrug-resistant or opportunistic infection, or mortality, and 27 (87%) found that allergy-labeled patients had at least 1 negative outcome. Of 9 studies examining healthcare costs, 7 (78%) found that allergy-labeled patients incurred significantly higher drug or hospital-related costs. Antibiotic allergy labels have negative effects on antibiotic use, clinical outcomes, and economic outcomes in a variety of clinical settings and populations.