Abstract
The antimicrobial stewardship team (AST) plays an important role in assisting with the treatment of infectious diseases. In August 2018, we started a program to dedicate a pharmacist to the AST and performed consultations focusing on patients before receiving intravenous antibiotics and all patients receiving intravenous antibiotics. In this study, we investigated the impact of full-time pharmacist interventions on antimicrobial stewardship pre- (August 2017 - July 2018) and post- (August 2018 - July 2019) intervention.
The total number of consultations with the full-time pharmacist increased significantly at 71 and 252 consultations pre- and post-intervention, respectively. There was no significant difference in the intervention, and a total of 69 (pass rate 85.5％) and 230 (83.5％) prescription improvement proposals were made pre- and post-intervention, respectively (P = 0.852).
There was no difference in 30-day mortality pre- and post-intervention.
Additionally, as compared to the period from August 2017 to July 2018, that is, before the intervention, Antimicrobial Use Density (AUD) / Days of Therapy (DOT) for carbapenem antibiotics decreased from 0.73 to 0.58 during the intervention period (P = 0.004).
Based on these results, we suggest that the implementation of aggressive consultations and interventions by the full-time pharmacist is useful for promoting the appropriate treatment.
