A Privacy-Preserving Audit and Feedback System for the Antibiotic Prescribing of General Practitioners: Survey Study

Kassaye Yitbarek Yigzaw; Taridzo Chomutare; Rolf Wynn; Gro Karine Rosvold Berntsen; Johan Gustav Bellika

doi:10.2196/31650

A Privacy-Preserving Audit and Feedback System for the Antibiotic Prescribing of General Practitioners: Survey Study

JMIR Form Res. 2022 Jul 13;6(7):e31650. doi: 10.2196/31650.

Authors

Kassaye Yitbarek Yigzaw¹, Taridzo Chomutare¹, Rolf Wynn^{2

3}, Gro Karine Rosvold Berntsen^{1

4}, Johan Gustav Bellika^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Norwegian Centre for E-health Research, University Hospital of North Norway, Tromsø, Norway.
² Institute of Clinical Medicine, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway.
³ Divison of Substance Use and Mental Health, University Hospital of North Norway, Tromsø, Norway.
⁴ Department of Community Medicine, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway.

PMID: 35830221
PMCID: PMC9330202
DOI: 10.2196/31650

Abstract

Background: Antibiotic resistance is a worldwide public health problem that is accelerated by the misuse and overuse of antibiotics. Studies have shown that audits and feedback enable clinicians to compare their personal clinical performance with that of their peers and are effective in reducing the inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics. However, privacy concerns make audits and feedback hard to implement in clinical settings. To solve this problem, we developed a privacy-preserving audit and feedback (A&F) system.

Objective: This study aims to evaluate a privacy-preserving A&F system in clinical settings.

Methods: A privacy-preserving A&F system was deployed at three primary care practices in Norway to generate feedback for 20 general practitioners (GPs) on their prescribing of antibiotics for selected respiratory tract infections. The GPs were asked to participate in a survey shortly after using the system.

Results: A total of 14 GPs responded to the questionnaire, representing a 70% (14/20) response rate. The participants were generally satisfied with the usefulness of the feedback and the comparisons with peers, as well as the protection of privacy. The majority of the GPs (9/14, 64%) valued the protection of their own privacy as well as that of their patients.

Conclusions: The system overcomes important privacy and scaling challenges that are commonly associated with the secondary use of electronic health record data and has the potential to improve antibiotic prescribing behavior; however, further study is required to assess its actual effect.

Keywords: antibiotics; antimicrobial stewardship; clinical setting; electronic health record; feedback; learning health care system; patient privacy; prescription; privacy; quality improvement.

©Kassaye Yitbarek Yigzaw, Taridzo Chomutare, Rolf Wynn, Gro Karine Rosvold Berntsen, Johan Gustav Bellika. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 13.07.2022.