Effects of a Collaborative, Community Hospital Network for Antimicrobial Stewardship Program Implementation.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Infectious Disease Control
• Public Health

Background:

• Individual hospitals often struggle with limited resources for effective antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASP).
• Lack of expertise, data, and educational tools hinders hospital-based ASP implementation.
• A collaborative approach can address these resource limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of a collaborative, consultative network on hospital antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASP).
• To assess changes in antimicrobial use (AU) within hospitals participating in the network.
• To determine the effectiveness of shared expertise and resources for ASP implementation.

Main Methods:

• Established a consultative network offering on-site expert consultation, shared databases, and educational programs.
• Conducted a retrospective, longitudinal analysis of antimicrobial use (AU) in 17 hospitals over 36 months (2013-2018).
• Utilized segmented regression to analyze facility-wide AU trends, comparing rates before and after intervention initiation.

Main Results:

• Hospitals actively increased ASP-focused activities during network participation.
• Overall antimicrobial use (AU) remained stable in the first 12 months but decreased significantly thereafter (RR 0.95).
• Fluoroquinolone use showed a significant decline after the first year, while other agent groups had a nonsignificant downward trend.

Conclusions:

• Network hospitals enhanced ASP activities and achieved a sustained reduction in antimicrobial use over 42 months.
• A collaborative, consultative network model effectively provides hospitals with essential ASP implementation expertise.
• This model supports long-term growth and success of hospital antimicrobial stewardship programs.