Antimicrobial Stewardship in Tertiary Hospitals

Project Details

Surgical antibiotic prophylaxis was identified as the most common reason for antibiotics to be prescribed in tertiary hospitals in Australia during the National Antimicrobial Prescribing Survey (NAPS) performed in November 2013. Surgical antibiotic prophylaxis is an important strategy to prevent surgical site infections however, in the 2013 NAPS survey, ~50% of surgical antibiotic prophylaxis use was inappropriate, particularly because of prolonged duration or inappropriate agent selection.

National and international surgical antibiotic prophylaxis guidelines may not reflect the local ecology of organisms associated with surgical site infections. Currently, there is a national strategy for the development of a national AMR surveillance in Australia being led by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. We plan to use data coming from this program, linking data on antimicrobial resistance with antimicrobial consumption, which will improve the understanding of the local epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance and inform guideline development.

At the end of this project we expect to have empowered hospitals to critically assess the use of antibiotics for the most common surgical conditions. We will have identified and tested generalisable strategies to improve prescribing in the identified high volume and high-risk problem surgical areas.

Researchers

  • Professor Karin Thursky CI
  • A/Professor Caroline Marshall CI
  • A/Professor Kirsty Buising CI
  • Professor Mike Richards CI
  • Dr Trish Peel CI
  • Dr Ann Bull AI
  • A/Professor Leon Worth AI

Funding

  • NHMRC CRE Grant APP1079625

Research Group



Faculty Research Themes

Infection and Immunology



Key Contact

For further information about this research, please contact the research group leader.

Department / Centre

Medicine

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