Our antimicrobial pharmacist-led intervention included: (a) a structured review of antibiotic prescriptions; (b) educating prescribers on antimicrobial therapy; (c) monthly reporting of department-level rates of blood sampling for culture. Daily review began in May 2018 and was discontinued after 10 months; however, the other interventions were conducted throughout the study period. This study aimed to evaluate the sustained impact of pharmacist's interventions on antimicrobial therapy and clinical outcomes between the baseline (May-December 2017), intervention (May-December 2018), and post-intervention (May-December 2019) periods. The rate of blood culture collections before starting antipseudomonal agent therapy was significantly increased from the baseline to post-intervention periods (71% vs. 85%, p < 0.001). Antipseudomonal agent therapy was more frequently de-escalated in the post-intervention period than in the baseline period (73% vs. 54%, p = 0.038). Total use of antipseudomonal agents was reduced from the baseline to intervention periods and persisted during the post-intervention period (50.5 vs. 41.8 and 42.6 DDD per 1000 patient-days, p = 0.016 and p = 0.022, respectively). During the study period, there were significant reductions in the incidence of hospital-acquired Clostridioides difficile infection (1.12, 0.54, and 0.51 per 10,000 patient-days, respectively, p = 0.031) and 30-day mortality with bacteremia (19%, 18%, and 12%, respectively, p = 0.005). Our pharmacist-led interventions sustainably achieved appropriate antimicrobial therapy and improved clinical outcomes.
Keywords: antibiotic use; antimicrobial stewardship; blood culture collection; clinical outcome; de-escalation therapy; infectious disease pharmacist.