An HHS agency has released a toolkit to guide hospitals and health systems trying to curb inappropriate antibiotic use.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality created the Acute Care Hospital Toolkit, which focuses on three areas:
• Antibiotic stewardship program improvement
• Establishing a safety culture around antibiotic prescribing
• Sharing best practices for the diagnosis and treatment of common infections
The toolkit aims to help hospitals enhance antibiotic prescribing by using the "Four Moments of Antibiotic Decision Making" framework that encourages clinicians to ask themselves four questions when deciding antibiotic therapy for patient, beginning with "Does my patient have an infection that requires antibiotics?"
The toolkit offers an explanation of the framework as well as presentations and tools to support implementation of the framework.
Learn more about the toolkit here.