Monday kicked off the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Get Smart About Antibiotics Week, which runs Nov. 14 to 20.
The annual event encourages relevant stakeholders and the general public to engage in antibiotic stewardship in outpatient, inpatient, and animal health settings.
CDC has released a partner toolkit for promoting antibiotic stewardship to improve patient safety and ensure the continued efficacy of antibiotics. The toolkit includes fact sheets, posters, sample social media posts and other resources.
The agency also issued a framework to improve antibiotic prescribing in outpatient settings, focused on four core elements:
- commitment from clinicians and facility leaders;
- implementing at least one policy or practice to improve antibiotic prescribing practices;
- tracking and reporting prescribing practices and routinely reporting back to clinicians; and
- educating patients and families on appropriate antibiotic use, and giving clinicians access to experts in antibiotic stewardship.
CDC also will host a Twitter chat on Nov. 18 from 11 am to 1 pm ET using #AntibioticResistance.
Contact Director of Policy Erin O’Malley at eomalley@essentialhospitals.org or 202.585.0127 with questions.