team members about clinical practice guidelines, based on what we
observe when we oversee antibiotic prophylaxis for surgical patients.
Ensure cultures are performed before starting antibiotics. This will help identi-
fy the source of the infection and help preclude the possibility
that an inappropriate broad-spectrum antibiotic might negatively
affect the patient.
Stay up-to-date on research findings.
Stay abreast of the latest developments so you can help your team
maintain and improve efficiency without increasing the risk of infec-
tion.
Use your clinical judgment to identify barriers.
For example, we should help implement policies and proce-
dures that account for differences among patients. Many patients
are allergic to certain medications and may not fit easily into a facili-
ty's established protocol. As nurses, we need to help think through
these types of common scenarios. If a patient has an allergy, what's
the backup plan? Follow-up is also important. Why was a patient
given an alternative antibiotic, and what were the results?
Antibiotic stewardship
Ensuring that the right patients are given the right doses of the right
drugs at the right times and for the right durations is only half the bat-
tle. Our involvement in this fight needs to go deeper. We should be
key players in our facilities' antibiotic stewardship programs. Buy-in
from leadership is crucial if antibiotic stewardship programs are to
succeed.
Ultimately, the best way to protect against overuse of antibiotics is to
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