Antibiotic documentation: death by a thousand clicks

Bacteria and clinicians have one thing in common: resistance. As widespread antibiotic use has increased, antimicrobial resistance has risen.1 Despite this, many clinicians remain resistant to changing their antibiotic-prescribing habits.1 Antimicrobial stewardship—which focuses on interventions to help optimise antibiotic selection, dose and duration—has gained substantial public health interest while continuing to face frequent frontline clinician opposition.2 3 In this issue of BMJ Quality and Safety, Saini and colleagues’ findings support a seemingly simple antimicrobial stewardship tool: documentation of antibiotic indications so that explicit reasons for the prescription are recorded.4 In a scoping review of 123 publications, Saini and colleagues found beneficial effects of antibiotic indication documentation on the quality of patient care, including preventing errors, improving antibiotic prescribing and supporting communication at care transitions.4 Yet, critical barriers—often in the form of clinician resistance—diminish the ability of many...

Source: BMJ Quality and Safety - October 19, 2022 Category: General Medicine Authors: Ciarkowski, C., Vaughn, V. M. Tags: Editorials Source Type: research