Antibiotics save lives and are critical tools for treating common and life-threatening conditions. Antibiotic resistance is a growing threat to public health worldwide. Improving the way healthcare professionals prescribe antibiotics helps keep us healthy and reduces antibiotic resistance, which ensures that these life-saving drugs will remain effective for future generations.
Appropriate use of antibiotics is an essential part of patient safety. It is the policy of our hospital that all healthcare professionals are committed to prescribing antibiotics appropriately. The Antimicrobial Stewardship Programme (ASP) team works closely with all healthcare professionals to develop and update hospital-wide antibiotic guidelines based on current and evidence-based practices. We review the use of antibiotics in KKH to target areas for improvement and provide regular educational updates to healthcare professionals.
As part of our hospital’s antimicrobial stewardship programme, every patient who has been prescribed with selected antibiotics, which are antibiotics that act against a wide range of disease-causing bacteria, will be reviewed by the ASP team. An example of a class of broad-spectrum antibiotics that comes under the purview of the ASP team is known as Carbapenems. We review the appropriateness of Carbapenems upon initiation (“initial”) as well as throughout the antibiotic course (“overall”).
Since the introduction of ASP in KKH, initial and overall appropriateness of Carbapenems has increased steadily from 75 – 80% and 50 – 70% in 2012 respectively, to 80-90% over the years. This is comparable to other similar institutions1.
The graph below shows details based on data from 2018 to 2022 on both the initial and overall appropriateness of Carbapenem prescriptions in KKH.
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