A “Unique and Inexpensive” Approach to Antimicrobial Stewardship

​Giving providers a choice in how improvement methods are implemented can improve antimicrobial stewardship efforts in a variety of clinical settings, according to an original investigation in the August 2017 issue of JAMA Internal Medicine. The authors conducted a study that featured 1,121 patient cases with 700 antimicrobial prescriptions at seven clinical departments in two medical centers in the Netherlands from October 1, 2011, through December 31, 2015. The authors gave prescribers a free choice on how they chose to improve their antimicrobial stewardship efforts. The reasons behind this were to give prescribers a feeling of autonomy and help them feel ownership over their organization's antimicrobial stewardship efforts.