The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is recommending the inclusion of antibiotic stewardship in guidelines for the treatment of infectious diseases.
The recommendations, developed by CDC’s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC), aim to optimize effective treatment and minimize adverse consequences, including antibiotic resistance. Specifically, HICPAC recommends that:
- principles of testing focus on proper use of diagnostic tests and avoid testing without appropriate clinical indication; and
- principles for treatment include the judicious use of antibiotics, with dosing based on efficacy studies, and provision of the minimum effective duration of antibiotic therapy.
HICPAC provides advice and guidance to CDC and the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services regarding infection control, strategies for surveillance, antimicrobial resistance, and control of health care-associated infections. America’s Essential Hospitals has a liaison representative seat at HICPAC.
The CDC recommendations follow other federal measures to combat antibiotic resistance. In June, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released proposed updates to Medicare and Medicaid Conditions of Participation (CoPs) that would require hospitals to develop and maintain an antibiotic stewardship program and adhere to nationally recognized guidelines for infection prevention and control and antibiotic stewardship.
Contact Director of Policy Erin O’Malley at eomalley@essentialhospitals.org or 202.585.0127 with questions.
