Background: Antibiotics account for a high percentage of hospital pharmacy expenses. An elevated proportion of the prescriptions are considered inappropriate. Infectious diseases specialist could help other physicians in improving antibiotics prescriptions.
Methods: Treatments in all patients hospitalized in four surgical wards were checked daily and recommendations were made in cases with signs of inadequate antibiotics prescriptions. The program was carried out during for 4 months and the results were compared with a similar period of the previous year.
Results: 562 treatments of 393 patients were reviewed . Five hundred twenty four recommendations were made (90% of them were accepted). There was a significant reduction in the number of inadequate prescriptions. Antibiotic expenditure decreased by 29,262 euros (7,240 euros/month), implying a reduction of 2.35 euros/hospitalization-bed/day. There were no statistically significant differences in the amount of hospital resistant bacteria nor in mortality between the two periods.
Conclusions: Following application of a non-compulsory control program, antibiotic prescription improved and expenditure decreased, with no change in mortality. Acceptation of the program by the physicians of the departments implicated was favourable.