Dr. Flanders, a past president of SHM who has worked extensively with the CDC and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, was behind the development of the time-out strategy. Dr. Srinivasan says the clinical utility of the method was “eye-opening.”
The strategy, which has taken hold among hospital groups the CDC has worked with, has demonstrated that stewardship and patient management are not at odds, Dr. Srinivasan says. Despite patient sign-outs and hand-offs, the time-out strategy allows any clinician to track a patient’s antibiotic status and reevaluate the treatment plan.
Having a process is critical to more responsible prescribing practices, Dr. Flanders says. He attributes much of the variability in antibiotics prescribing among similar departments at hospitals across the country to a lack of standards, though he noted that variability in patient populations undoubtedly plays a role.
Lack of Stats
The CDC report showed up to a threefold difference in the number of antibiotics prescribed to patients in similar hospital settings at hospitals across the country. The reasons for this are not known, Dr. Fishman says.
“The main reason we don’t know is we don’t have a good mechanism in the U.S. right now to monitor antibiotics use,” he explains. “We don’t have a way for healthcare facilities to benchmark their use.”
Without good strategies to monitor and develop more responsible antibiotics prescription practices, Dr. Flanders believes many physicians find themselves trapped by the “chagrin” of not prescribing.
“Patients often enter the hospital without a clear diagnosis,” he says. “They are quite ill. They may have a serious bacterial infection, and, in diagnosing them, we can’t guess wrong and make the decision to withhold antibiotics, only to find out later the patient is infected.
“We know delays increase mortality, and that’s not an acceptable option.”
Patients often enter the hospital without a clear diagnosis. They are quite ill. They may have a serious bacterial infection, and, in diagnosing them, we can’t guess wrong and make the decision to withhold antibiotics, only to find out later the patient is infected.
—Scott Flanders, MD, FACP, MHM, professor of internal medicine, director of hospital medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, past president, SHM
Beyond the Bedside
Many physicians fail to consider the bigger societal implications when prescribing antibiotics for sick patients in their charge, because their responsibility is, first and foremost, to that individual. But, Dr. Srinivasan says, “good antibiotic stewardship is beneficial to the patient lying in the bed in front of you, because every day we are confronted with C. diff. infections, adverse drug events, all of these issues.”
Strategies and processes help hospitalists make the best decision for their patients at the time they require care, while providing room for adaptation and the improvements that serve all patients.
Some institutions use interventions like prospective audit and feedback monitoring to help physicians become more responsible antibiotic prescribers, says Dr. Fishman, who worked with infectious disease specialists at the University of Pennsylvania in the early 1990s to develop a stewardship program there.
“In our institution, we see better outcomes—lower complications—usually associated with a decreased length of stay, at least in the ICU for critically ill patients—and increased cure rates,” he says.
Stewardship efforts take investment on the part of the hospital. Dr. Fishman cited a recent study at the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania that looked at whether a particular education strategy the hospital implemented actually led to improvements.4
“It was successful in intervening in this problem [of inappropriate prescribing] in pediatricians, but it did take ongoing education of both healthcare providers and patients,” he says, noting that large financial and time investments are necessary for the ongoing training and follow-up that is necessary.
