Antimicrobial stewardship audit and feedback rounds: the impact of electronic systems and moving beyond the restricted antibiotic list

Background Current methods of antimicrobial usage surveillance have limited efficacy in changing practice due to delayed reporting to clinicians and the inability to stratify by medical specialty. This study was undertaken in a tertiary teaching hospital with a well established antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) programme and electronic medicines management (eMM) system in Sydney, Australia. Aims To describe and analyse the implementation of a novel AMS audit and feedback method, in the context of an eMM system. Methods The AMS team conducted the audit weekly, and the study design was a prospective, observational study. All acute, adult inpatients were included in this intervention. All active systemic antimicrobial prescriptions on the day of the rounds were included. Results The prevalence of patients on antimicrobial therapy was 37%. The median time taken per round was 44 min for eMM compared to 58 min for paper. All key performance indicators improved over the study period. Appropriateness compared to guidelines increased from 55% to 71%, and documentation of an indication increased from 75% to 98%. There were 1413 recommendations made, with the most common being to cease an antimicrobial agent. The recommendation uptake rate was 47% at 24 h post-round. Conclusions AMS rounds are an effective tool for auditing and providing feedback on antimicrobial use and should include all antimicrobials rather than solely 'restricted' agents. These rounds had a high uptake rate, improvements in the appropriateness of antimicrobial use, and a planned duration or review date. A benefit of eMM was improvement in the documentation of indication for antimicrobial agents, and reduced time taken to audit.