An Antimicrobial Prescription Surveillance System that Learns from Experience

Inappropriate prescribing of antimicrobials is a major clinical concern that affects as many as 50 percent of prescriptions. One of the difficulties of antimicrobial prescribing lies in the necessity to sequentially adjust the treatment of a patient as new clinical data become available. The lack of specialized healthcare resources and the overwhelming amount of information to process make manual surveillance unsustainable. To solve this problem, we have developed and deployed an automated antimicrobial prescription surveillance system that assists hospital pharmacists in identifying and reporting inappropriate prescriptions. Since its deployment, the system has improved antimicrobial prescribing and decreased antimicrobial use.