March, 2023
Hospital name and location: Saint Anthony Hospital, Chicago, IL
Year of CoE designation: 2019
Year the hospital stewardship program was established: 2015
1. What stewardship initiatives are you most proud of?
There are many reasons why I am proud of our Antimicrobial Stewardship Program. One accomplishment has been our robust prospective audit and feedback. Combined with our treatment guidelines and EMR order sets, these initiatives have led to a reduction in the use of antipseudomonal beta-lactams. Overall, physicians are using antimicrobials wisely and in a more guideline-concordant way.
2. Please share one or two of your future goals for your program.
I look forward to expanding stewardship in the outpatient setting. Our hospital is undergoing a major change in EMR and is also developing an ambulatory pharmacy that will help us with transitions of care and ambulatory prescriptions. We are excited for these great opportunities for stewardship.
3. Describe your hospital's engagement in formal mentorship of area hospitals or other facilities where your expertise is shared in a structured, ongoing partnership.
a. Does your program have the capacity to mentor other CoEs?
We are very proud of our program and enjoy working with other facilities in the area. Our 151-bed safety-net community hospital implemented a comprehensive stewardship program and won an award from the Illinois Hospital Association. This award led to a partnership with a similar hospital, where we disseminated our protocols and helped them establish their program as well. Our partner hospital successfully did so and is also an Antimicrobial Stewardship Center of Excellence.
Another key partnership is with the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy. I am an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and direct the Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program. This role has led to a lot of collaborative work with my pharmacy colleagues. I’ve had the pleasure of hosting pharmacy fellows at Saint Anthony Hospital, where they get hands-on experience in stewardship. Helping train future stewards gives us great pleasure. I also enjoy mentoring them in research projects. PharmD fellows have presented various abstracts related to their time at Saint Anthony Hospital.
4. Describe one unique or novel way your stewardship program has improved antibiotic prescribing, antibiotic-associated outcomes or diagnostic stewardship.
One of the projects we currently have is a robust stewardship of testing initiative. ASP and the ID physician work closely with other departments in the hospital, such as nursing and lab, to identify and review new orders for C. difficile testing and urine cultures in patients with indwelling urinary catheters. We review the case and discuss it with providers to increase awareness and align testing with evidence-based practices. This program has an impact on excess antimicrobial use and unnecessary testing.
