Intermountain Healthcare researchers conducted a groundbreaking, one-of-a-kind survey to identify and classify antimicrobial stewardship programs into four distinct groups – a first step in examining the effectiveness of these models to best improve patient care and reduce the rise of antibiotic resistance superbugs .

Antimicrobial stewardship programs are an important way for hospitals and healthcare systems to ensure antibiotics are used appropriately. If they continue to be given to patients who don’t need them, they can harm those patients while also contributing to antibiotic resistance, making bacterial infections more difficult to treat.

These programs can be as diverse as healthcare systems themselves, leaving researchers in the dark as to best practices in their antibiotic approach. That’s why this new work from the team at Intermountain Healthcare is so important.

“We brought together leaders in antimicrobial stewardship from across the country to better understand both the structure and function of their programs,” said researcher Whitney Buckel, PharmD, an antimicrobial stewardship pharmacist manager at Intermountain Healthcare. “We wanted to categorize different approaches for this work, hoping to then find out which methods are most effective and what can be used as a model for other healthcare systems.”

“You could find 50 different marathon training programs that would all get you to the finish line, but they may not all be efficient or applicable to you. The same is true for antimicrobial stewardship programs,” added researcher Eddie Stenehjem, MD, medical director of antibiotic stewardship at Intermountain Healthcare. “We wanted to get a better picture of what’s happening in the mostly residential health care settings so we can start determining which programs are the best…