Antimicrobial stewardship programs specifically targeting Clostridium difficile infections offer a promising path to protect patients from this enteric scourge, but may have little effect unless a broad range of other infection control measures are also put in place, researchers are…
Reducing antibiotic overuse and unnecessary administration in children would go a long way in slowing the rise of drug-resistant pathogens, but there is an understandable temptation to do everything possible for the child and distraught parents. Knowing that many of these…
The suddenly white-hot issue of antibiotic stewardship is not a new idea by any means, so it comes as something of a surprise to note that the first multicenter study testing a single intervention was recently published.(1) The first of…
Antibiotic stewardship – while labeled as the last-ditch stand to stave off a post-antibiotic era – actuaully can begin on a fairly mundane level. Sort of like realizing it now costs more than a penny to make a penny, but…
Infectious disease societies frustrated at watching antimicrobial resistance increase for decades are taking the unusual step of asking for federal regulation and oversight of clinical practice, imploring the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to require hospitals to implement…
With the misuse and overuse of antibiotics driving drug resistance in general and emerging Clostridium difficile in particular, infection preventionists and health care epidemiologists want to have a greater role in antimicrobial stewardship programs. It may seem surprising that this…
As a key complement to its new antibiotic use tracking system, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is partnering with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in a pilot program to prevent overuse and misuse of antibiotics in hospitals….
One good thing about Clostridium difficile – and there aren’t many – is that direct experience with this nasty pathogen has a way of galvanizing people into action. Since carpet bombing somebody with antibiotics is a common setup for this…