PCHS addresses appropriate antibiotic use
Antibiotic Awareness Week is Nov. 12-18. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s educational effort, Be Antibiotics Aware: Smart Use, Best Care, is the year-round effort to improve antibiotic prescribing and use and combat antibiotic resistance.
In July 2017, Perkins County Health Services (PCHS) created a team of 13 hospital professionals to address this global health care concern and educate hospital professionals and the community on appropriate antibiotic use and how to combat the treat of antibiotic resistance.
Dr. Matthew Byrd and Jorje Geisert, RP are team leads who meet monthly with other team members and University of Nebraska Medical Center experts who connect electronically. This educational opportunity supports a hospital-wide assessment and data collection of antibiotic use, and distributes up-to-date information on improving antibiotic use.
On Oct. 23, PCHS Antibiotic Stewardship Team held a regional educational informative dinner meeting for area medical providers, pharmacists and dentists to share the CDC message and how best to address prescribing antibiotics for patients and their families in order to help reduce antibiotic resistance.
Antibiotics save lives and are critical tools for treating a number of common and more serious infections, like those that can lead to sepsis. However, according to the CDC, at least 30 percent of the antibiotics in U.S. outpatient settings are prescribed unnecessarily. Any time antibiotics are used, they can cause side effects and lead to antibiotic resistance, one of the most urgent threats to the public’s health.
Antibiotic resistance happens when bacteria develop the ability to defeat the drugs designed to kill them. Each year in the United States, at least 2 million people become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and at least 23,000 people die as a direct result. Many more die from complications from antibiotic-resistant infections.
Improving the way healthcare professionals prescribe antibiotics, and the way antibiotics are taken, helps keep people healthy now, helps fight antibiotic resistance, and ensures that these lifesaving drugs will be available for future generations.