Content provided courtesy Dr. Salman Ashraf: Associate Medical Director, Nebraska Antimicrobial Stewardship Assessment and Promotion Program (ASAP) & Medical Director, Nebraska Infection Control Assessment and Promotion Program (ICAP) CDC’s most recent (2019) report on Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States describes 2.8 million infections due to antibiotic resistant organisms in the US resulting in over 35,000 deaths annually. The Division of Infectious Diseases at University… Continue Reading
Category: Antimicrobial Stewardship
Bellevue Medical Center (BMC) is a community hospital campus of Nebraska Medicine. In 2017, our Nebraska Medicine Antimicrobial Stewardship Program expanded to include BMC with the expansion of our ASP expertise at our main campus. Danny Schroeder, a pharmacist at BMC, was recruited to lead the stewardship activities on that campus, with expertise provided by Dr. Jasmine Marcelin. In celebrating #AntibioticAwarenessWeek, Danny shares his thoughts… Continue Reading
Antibiotic Awareness Week Proclamation Signing Ceremony CDC has designated November 18 to 24 as US Antibiotic Awareness Week. Antibiotic Awareness Week is an annual observance in the United States and around the world to promote the importance of using antibiotic appropriately as a mean to minimize unwanted effects from antibiotic therapy (e.g., adverse reactions, Clostridioides difficile infections) and antibiotic resistance. In recognition of this annual… Continue Reading
CDC has designated November 18-22, 2019 as US Antibiotic Awareness Week! We are joining the CDC and many organizations around the world recognizing and promoting awareness for appropriate antibiotic use. During #AntibioticAwarenessWeek, collaborative blog posts from UNMC ID/ASP and Nebraska ASAP will be published between November 18 and 22. Check out these videos supporting the Antibiotic Awareness Week message, from our UNMC ID archives! Dr. Jasmine… Continue Reading
The Nebraska Medicine Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (ASP) invites you to participate in a research survey entitled: Use of Oral Antibiotic Therapy (OAT) for Definitive Treatment of Uncomplicated Bloodstream Infections (uBSIs): Opportunities for Antimicrobial Stewardship. There are several studies describing successful use of oral antibiotics to treat bloodstream infections, but are clinicians actually using oral antibiotics for bacteremia? The purpose of this study is to evaluate… Continue Reading
Stewardship in Community Hospitals: How should we spend our limited resources? The following is a review by our ID Fellowship Program Director Dr. Trevor Van Schooneveld from our last Infection Control/Antimicrobial Stewardship Journal Club. He discussed the article by Anderson et al: Feasibility of Core Antimicrobial Stewardship Interventions in Community Hospitals. JAMA Network Open. 2019;2(8):e199369. Antimicrobial stewardship is important to improving patient care and outcomes and numerous entities… Continue Reading
The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) is sponsoring the Race Against Resistance for the 4th year. Money raised is used to fund educational scholarships involved in treating, and researching, ways to prevent the 2050 predictions from coming true. This is a chance to take a stand against ‘superbugs’, to support those fighting against them today, to help change the future. Dr. Cawcutt is #RacingInRehab to gain… Continue Reading
PICC placement is common practice for intravenous (IV) antibiotic needs, however, we may be inadvertently placing certain patients at higher risks for complications. A recent study by Paje et al assessed the frequency of PICC placement among patients with CKD stage 3b or greater, a practice discordant with current guidelines. This prospective study included data from over 20,000 adult patients across 52 hospitals participating in… Continue Reading
Recently, a multidisciplinary team at UNMC published a diagnostic stewardship study in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology (ICHE) entitled: Hardwiring diagnostic stewardship using electronic ordering restrictions for gastrointestinal pathogen testing, that prompted a press release from The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), and a feature on an upcoming ICHE podcast episode. Drs. Jasmine Marcelin and Trevor Van Schooneveld are the lead and senior authors on this study…. Continue Reading
Life-threatening infections caused by antimicrobial resistant organisms, commonly referred to as ‘superbugs’ have taken the media by storm. MRSA, VRE, MDRO, KPC, CRE, CDI – all acronyms that put fear in our hearts that one day, we will have run out of treatment options. That one day, our patients will die from infections that we once could cure. Sadly, what was once a threat, is… Continue Reading