Develop a Culture of Safety Around Antibiotic Prescribing

For information on how the materials below can be integrated into institutional efforts to improve antibiotic use, please read the Toolkit Implementation Guide for Acute Care Antibiotic Stewardship Programs (PDF, 328 KB).

Presentations

Improving antibiotic use should be viewed as a patient safety issue. Clinicians involved in antibiotic prescribing and administration should be encouraged to understand both the benefits and risks of antibiotic use and be engaged in reducing harm associated with antibiotic use. Reducing harm often requires a change in thinking and behavior.

The presentations below are designed to help effect change in behaviors around antibiotic prescribing. They discuss how to present antibiotic use as a patient safety issue, how to improve communication and teamwork around prescribing, how to identify and address problems around antibiotic prescribing, and how to motivate appropriate prescribing.

Tools

The tools below are designed to be used to assist the Antibiotic Safety Program and frontline providers in creating a safety culture that values appropriate antibiotic prescribing and takes action when harm related to antibiotics is detected.