Successful Implementation of an Antibiotic Stewardship Program in an Academic Dental Practice

Most antibiotic use in the United States occurs in the outpatient setting, and 10% of these prescriptions are generated by dentists. The development of comprehensive antibiotic stewardship programs (ASPs) in the dental setting is nascent, and therefore we describe the implementation of a dental ASP.

A collaborative team of dentist, pharmacist, and physician leaders conducted a baseline needs assessment and literature evaluation to identify opportunities to improve antibiotic prescribing by dentists within Illinois' largest oral health care provider for Medicaid recipients. A multimodal intervention was implemented that included patient and provider education, clinical guideline development, and an assessment of the antibiotic prescribing rate per urgent care visit before and after the educational interventions.

We identified multiple needs, including standardization of antibiotic prescribing practices for patients with acute oral infections in the urgent care clinics. A 72.9% decrease in antibiotic prescribing was observed in urgent care visits after implementation of our multimodal intervention (preintervention urgent care prescribing rate, 8.5% [24/283]; postintervention, 2.3% [8/352]; P < .001).

We report the successful implementation of a dental ASP that is concordant with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Core Elements of Antibiotic Stewardship in the Outpatient Setting. Our approach may be adapted to other dental practices to improve antibiotic prescribing.