1302. Interactive Case-based Antimicrobial Stewardship Education Program to Pharmacists at a Large Community Health System


 
 
 Education on antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) is one of the several elements outlined by the Center for Disease Control for hospital antibiotic stewardship programs. However, the Infectious Diseases Society of America guideline on implementing antimicrobial stewardship notes that passive education should not be a sole method for training as the effects are often short lived. AMS education strategies beyond didactic lectures and written material distribution are needed.
 We sought to describe the implementation of an interactive, case-based AMS educational program targeting pharmacists across a multi-hospital community health system licensed for over 1,500 beds.
 
 
 
 Each month, a custom patient case was drafted by an infectious diseases trained pharmacist to highlight a common AMS principle encountered in practice. These topics were broadly categorized into appropriate empiric antibiotic selection, treatment plan modification, and identification of non-infectious clinical syndromes. A specific question with multiple choice answers was drafted. The case was disseminated to all hospital pharmacists via email using Microsoft Outlook. Pharmacists were prompted to use the voting buttons to select the correct answer (Figure 1). After a week, results of the survey was shared with the entire pharmacist staff along with information on the primary teaching point and detailed explanations for why each answer was correct or incorrect.
 Example Voting Buttons for Case-Based Education
 
 
 
 A total of eleven AMS cases were disseminated to 88 hospital pharmacists involved with direct patient care. Average number of responses per case was 27 (31%), range 17-41 (19%-47%). Average number of correct responses for each case was 74%, range 26%-100%. The highest rates of correct responses came from cases focusing on empiric antibiotic selection (87%), followed by identification of non-infectious clinical syndromes (73%). The lowest rate of correct responses were found with treatment plan modification cases (65%).
 
 
 
 This case-based AMS education program leveraged existing technology to provide engagement across a large and geographically diverse pharmacist staff, provide opportunity to apply stewardship concepts, and assess staff pharmacist knowledge on general AMS principles.
 
 
 
 Matthew Song, PharmD, BCIDP, Merck: Stocks/Bonds|ObsEva: Stocks/Bonds.
