The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new set of guidelines that should be applied when it comes to prescribing antibiotics in outpatient settings including four pillars that would guide the entire process. The guidelines were published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), under the name Core Elements of Outpatient Antibiotic Stewardship.
The report is addressed to all the facilities that participate in outpatient care, urging them to apply the strategies that are directed to improving the manner antibiotics are prescribed. Good practice in this area could significantly improve rates of unnecessary antibiotic use among patients who could be prescribed less medication instead.
Pillars Of Correct Medication
The report was addressed to emergency departments, as well as primary care or specialty clinics and community pharmacies, and every other participants involved in the process from when the diagnosis takes place to when the antibiotics are prescribed, in an attempt to prevent overmedication.
In order for these guidelines to be equally applied by all the participants to the equation of proper medication, four pillars were proposed. These are commitment; action for policy and practice; tracking and reporting; and education and expertise.
Each of these pillars is devoted to one or more steps in the medication process. Commitment, for instance, is aimed at raising the accountability of the medical personnel prescribing the antibiotics, as well as of the personnel who is responsible for selling it, which also leads to good policy and practice.
Consequently, tracking and reporting are useful when it comes to monitoring the practices in order to create a standard practice and avoid mis-medication or overmedication, and the pillar aimed at building education and expertise is built on the idea of providing all the necessary information to the personnel involved in all steps of the medication process, in order to minimize the possible negative outcomes.
Lowering The Medication Resistance
Consequently, pediatricians welcomed this measure, as it could contribute to diminishing the risks of children having access to antibiotics that were never used by their parents. One of the purposes of the U.S.'s medical care is to reduce all kinds of inappropriate medical use by 50 percent by 2020.
This objective would majorly benefit children, who can easily be subjected to negligence in this area. Lowering the rates of unnecessary medication is a terrific objective when it comes to lowering medication resistance worldwide as well, as this would be one of the primary benefits of antibiotics being correctly administered. The United States has put this strategy on its health agenda, in an attempt to make medication more useful to patients.
