A new study suggests hospitals are too heavy-handed when it comes to prescribing antibiotics.
The study found unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions could have an estimated $163 million in excess costs, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America reported.
"The overuse of antibiotics is an industry-wide public health issue that is occurring across all care settings," said Leslie Schultz, RN, PhD, the lead author of the study and director of the Premier Safety Institute®, Premier, Inc. "Sometimes in an effort to 'do whatever it takes' to fight a serious infection, clinicians use multiple antibiotics to treat the same infection. This practice can contribute to antimicrobial resistance, put patient safety at risk and increase costs. We hope these findings help to enhance the antimicrobial stewardship initiatives that the majority of U.S. hospitals already have in place today."
About 70 percent of potential unnecessary therapies were found in three specific drug combinations used to treat anaerobic infections. The drug combination metronidazole and piperacillin-tazobactam accounted for more than 50 percent of these statistics.
To make their findings the researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of inpatient pharmacy data from more than 500 U.S. hospitals between 2008 and 2011. The analysis showed 78 percent of hospitals had evidence of unnecessary drug combinations and 32,507 cases of redundant antibiotics treatment.
Unnecessary antibiotic use can increase the risk of adverse drug events as well as contribute to antimicrobial resistance.
"Improving the way antibiotics are prescribed not only helps reduce rates of Clostridium difficile infection and antibiotic resistance, but can also improve individual patient outcomes, all while reducing healthcare costs," said Arjun Srinivasan, MD, associate director for Healthcare Associated Infection Prevention Programs in the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at CDC. "Eliminating these unnecessarily duplicative antibiotic therapies is a simple way that all facilities can both protect their patients and save healthcare dollars."
The findings were published in the October issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.
