UR Medicine’s Strong Memorial Hospital Fights Antibiotic Resistance

In a recent report published by The Pew Charitable Trusts, UR Medicine’s Strong Memorial Hospital was featured as an academic center that is leading the way in the fight against antibiotic resistance, an urgent health threat that leaves providers and patients with fewer options to treat dangerous infections.

The report, titled “A Path to Better Antibiotic Stewardship in Inpatient Settings,” highlights ten institutions across the country that have implemented effective antibiotic stewardship programs, which are designed to minimize the harmful effects of inappropriate or unnecessary antibiotic use.

“We realized several years ago that the judicious use of antibiotics is beneficial for our patients and for the hospital as a whole,” said Christopher Evans, Pharm.D., an infectious disease pharmacist and co-leader of the antibiotic stewardship team at Strong. “Overuse increases the number of organisms that don’t respond to antibiotics. If we fail to address this problem, we’ll struggle to treat many infections because drug choices will be limited and, in some cases, nonexistent.”

Evans adds that the incorrect use of antibiotics ups the risk of patients acquiring Clostridium difficile or C. diff, a bacterial infection that can cause life-threatening diarrhea and inflammation of the colon. Antibiotics wipe out much of the good bacteria in the gut, allowing dangerous bacteria like C. diff to flourish uncontested.

Finally, ensuring antibiotics are only used to treat bacterial infections (they don’t work against viruses) and prescribing them in the correct doses and for the right amount of time reduces health care costs.

Paul S. Graman, M.D., clinical director of the Infectious Diseases Division at Strong, heads the antibiotic stewardship program with Evans. Their team works with providers across the hospital to review patients receiving antibiotics and identify opportunities for intervention, such as limiting the dose or stopping antibiotic therapy all together. They also develop guidelines to encourage the use of narrow-spectrum antibiotics, which are effective against specific families of bacteria, in lieu of broad-spectrum antibiotics, which act against a wide range of disease-causing bacteria. Though broad-spectrum antibiotics eliminate most infections, they destroy protective bacteria in the process.  

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that up to 50 percent of all antibiotics prescribed in the U.S. are unnecessary or inappropriate, and that more than two million people are infected with antibiotic-resistant organisms each year, resulting in more than 23,000 deaths. In the near future, federal mandates will require hospitals and other health care facilities to implement antibiotic stewardship programs. Evans says that Strong’s team is already assisting UR Medicine affiliates with the implementation of stewardship programs that fit the needs of their patients and providers.

The Pew Charitable Trusts is a global research and public policy organization that works to: improve public policy by conducting rigorous analysis, linking diverse interests to pursue common causes and insisting on tangible results; inform the public by providing useful data that illuminate the issues and trends shaping our world; and invigorate civic life by encouraging democratic participation and strong communities.