Application of Monitoring Indicators in The Management of Hospital Use of Antimicrobials

Abstract

Background It is described in the literature that between 25–50% of antimicrobial prescriptions, in the hospital environment, are unnecessary or inadequate. The National Health Surveillance Agency launched the “Brazil Stewardship Project”, in order to assess the national panorama of antimicrobial use management programs, therefore, it is expected that managers will be encouraged to implement the antimicrobial use management program, with publication of the results, enabling the confrontation of national data.Methods This is an observational, analytical and prospective study conducted in a teaching hospital, with 94 active beds, distributed between the intensive care unit (ICU), the surgical clinic (SUR), the medical clinic (MED), the pneumology/infectology (PNE/INF) and pediatrics (PED).Results During the study period, a total of 11,628 patient-days were followed up and an average of 58.3% of patients were exposed to some antimicrobial. In 376 days, for every 1,000 days of hospitalization, patients were receiving antimicrobial therapy (LOT = 376/1000pd). The calculated global DOT / LOT ratio showed that each patient received an average of 1.5 antimicrobials during hospital stay.Conclusions The indicators addressed in this study proved to be of great relevance for obtaining data regarding the use of antimicrobials, contributing to the initiatives to be taken by the Stewardship program. This study is expected to encourage other hospitals to monitor the use of antimicrobials, allowing comparison of data.