Improving Post-discharge Antimicrobial Use: a Multicenter Stepped Wedge Trial Study

Antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) work to improve antibiotic prescribing within hospitals. ASPs often restrict their activities to inpatient antimicrobial-prescribing. However, at least 40% of all antimicrobial exposure associated with an acute-care hospital stay is prescribed at the time of hospital discharge (i.e., post-discharge). Post-discharge antimicrobials mediate clinical outcomes after discharge and may facilitate the spread of antimicrobial resistance.

Several studies have shown that post-discharge antimicrobial use is often inappropriate. For example, using national VA data, the investigators found that 61% of fluoroquinolone treatment days were prescribed at hospital discharge; manual chart reviews at 9 hospitals found that 40% of these post-discharge fluoroquinolone prescriptions were either unnecessary or sub-optimal. Other studies have found that 53-79% of all post-discharge antimicrobials are either unnecessary or sub-optimal.

Post-discharge antimicrobials are an important target for antimicrobial stewardship. However, inpatient stewardship metrics do not capture post-discharge antimicrobials and ASPs frequently do not evaluate these prescriptions. A 2016 VA survey found that less than 50% of hospitals routinely reviewed targeted antimicrobials at discharge. According to a 2016 survey in Michigan, only 17% of 48 hospitals had a process for reviewing outpatient antimicrobial orders at discharge.

It is unclear how inpatient stewardship resources can be effectively leveraged to improve post-discharge antimicrobial use. If the goal is to improve post-discharge antimicrobial use, a potentially effective strategy may be an audit-and-feedback process focused solely on prescriptions for patients who will soon be discharged. In this trial, the investigators will evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of such a process.