Implementation of an antibiotic stewardship quality improvement initiative in a community hospital for infants born at ≥35 weeks.

We present our experience in the implementation of an antibiotic stewardship quality improvement initiative directed toward infants born at ≥35 weeks using as a primary tool the Kaiser Permanente early onset sepsis calculator (KP-EOS-C) at the Baylor Scott & White Medical Center - Frisco. After the approval and support of the medical staff and administration, we proceeded to launch an extensive educational program for all women's services nursing staff on how to utilize this calculator to communicate results to the pediatricians on staff. After implementation, we saw a 54% reduction in the number of infants undergoing sepsis workup evaluations and a 51% reduction in the number of infants receiving antibiotics ( P < 0.001). We conclude that the implementation of this type of initiative may be feasible and worthwhile in other similar community hospitals, provided there is buy-in by physicians and administration as well as an extensive educational program to the hospital medical and nursing staff.
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