Impact of an infectious disease physician-led carbapenem postprescription feedback on prescribing behavior in a Japanese tertiary hospital: A before-after study.

INTRODUCTION

There is an insufficient number of infectious disease (ID) physicians in Japan. Hence, we considered a strategy to implement antimicrobial stewardship under these resource-limited settings.

METHODS

We compared carbapenem consumption, measured as days of therapy per 100 patient-days, between 24-month baseline and 12-month intervention periods. During the intervention period, an ID physician provided daily advises to prescribers against prolonged carbapenem use (≥14 days). Additionally, we sent all doctors a table containing the weekly point prevalence aggregate of carbapenem use of each department for 7-13 and ≥ 14 days via e-mail.

RESULTS

Among the 1241 carbapenem courses during the intervention period, the ID physician provided a total of 96 instances of feedback regarding carbapenem use for ≥14 days, with an acceptance rate of 76%. After the initiation of the intervention, the trend in monthly carbapenem consumption changed (coefficient: -0.62; 95% CI: -1.15 to -0.087, p = 0.024), and its consumption decreased (coefficient: -0.098; 95% CI: -0.16 to -0.039, p = 0.002) without an increase in the consumption of broad-spectrum antimicrobials or in-hospital mortality. Interestingly, the monthly number of carbapenem courses, but not the duration of carbapenem use, significantly decreased (coefficient: -3.02; 95% CI: -4.63 to -1.42, p = 0.001). The carbapenem-related annual estimated savings after the intervention was $83,745, with a 22% cost reduction.

CONCLUSIONS

Our ID physician-led daily intervention with weekly feedback regarding long-term carbapenem use was effective in reducing antimicrobial consumption. Such feedback may be useful in changing the prescribing behavior and promoting appropriate antimicrobial usage even in resource-limited settings.