Hospitals use SAS for antibiotic stewardship to focus on using antibiotics in a rational way. The purpose is to reduce antimicrobial resistance and excessive or inappropriate prescription of antibiotics. In this short blog post, I answer five of the most common questions concerning how data can prevent antimicrobial resistance.

1. Why does the use of antibiotics create such a fear that it might become one of the world’s most pressing public health threats in the future?

The use of antibiotics both in Europe and in the world is growing rapidly. Excessive or inappropriate prescription of antibiotics, and lack of follow-up on treatments, result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria, making treatment ineffective. Already 20-50 percent of all antibiotic prescriptions are useless.

If we become better at using antibiotics in a rational way and avoid excessive or inappropriate prescriptions, we can prevent antimicrobial resistance.

2. How is it possible that advanced analytics based on data can meet a challenge as big as reducing the use of antibiotics?

There are three keywords to answer that question: control, overview and follow-up. Antibiotic stewardship with SAS offers control, overview and follow-up on every patient in antibiotic treatment by using data to support clinical decisions. In daily use, that means SAS helps health care professionals work rationally with antibiotics. SAS provides health care professionals and the hospital management with a common tool.

3. Can a hospital expect to decrease the use of antibiotics by using SAS for antibiotic stewardship?

I am sure it will become really clear that the amount of antibiotic treatments will decrease. The solution automatically responds to the targets set to measure the efficiency of the system, and alerts health care professionals when hospital and treatment guidelines are not met. SAS presents health care professionals with all the information they need when deciding to use antibiotics for each patient, and afterwards it is easy to monitor and follow up on every patient in treatment. That results in better focus, visibility and transparency for antibiotic treatments.

4. Is this just another task to add on a busy everyday life for health care professionals?

SAS for antibiotic stewardship can be used both as a daily follow-up and decision tool for health care professionals and as a management tool to follow up and measure the total use of antibiotics.

It is an add-on. But it is based on access to data in a way health care professionals have been making decisions for decades. For each patient, all necessary elements that are relevant for the antibiotic treatment decision are available. This means that decisions taken by different health care professionals can be tracked, and the treatment followed and changed if necessary. The good news is that SAS for antibiotic stewardship leaves no patient behind and shows great transparency for every decision taken during the antibiotic treatment.

5. What does it require for a hospital to get up and running?

Once the decision has been made, the solution is very easy to implement and teach to both health care professionals and management. It is easy because SAS for antibiotic stewardship was developed by health care professionals for health care professionals. What makes the difference is the access to all data, the analyses and an overview pointing out those patients who need special attention for their antibiotic treatment. To achieve and ensure a rational use of antibiotics, SAS for antibiotic stewardship is designed to reach certain efficiency targets, besides the overall objective to reduce the total use of antibiotics.

For more information or a presentation of the SAS for antibiotic stewardship solution, please contact: Morten Krogh Danielsen