Sustained Reduction in Urgent Care Antibiotic Prescribing During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: An Academic Medical Center's Experience

David Ha; Sharon Ong'uti; Amy Chang; Emily Mui; Ian Nelligan; Brooke Betts; Christopher Lentz; William Alegria; Emily Fox; Lina Meng; Edward Stenehjem; Adam L Hersh; Stanley Deresinski; Maja Artandi; Marisa Holubar

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofab662

Sustained Reduction in Urgent Care Antibiotic Prescribing During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: An Academic Medical Center's Experience

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2022 Jan 22;9(2):ofab662. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofab662. eCollection 2022 Feb.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Stanford Antimicrobial Safety and Sustainability Program, Stanford Health Care, Stanford, California, USA.
² Primary Care and Population Health, Stanford, California, USA.
³ Department of Pharmacy, Stanford Health Care, Stanford, California, USA.
⁴ Express Care, Stanford Health Care, Stanford, California, USA.
⁵ Division of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Epidemiology, Intermountain Healthcare, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
⁶ Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

Abstract

We compared antibiotic prescribing before and during the -coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic at 2 academic urgent care clinics and found a sustained decrease in prescribing driven by respiratory encounters and despite transitioning to telemedicine. Antibiotics were rarely prescribed during encounters for COVID-19 or COVID-19 symptoms. COVID-19 revealed opportunities for outpatient stewardship programs.

Keywords: COVID-19; antibiotic prescribing; urgent care.

Grants and funding

R25 AI147369/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States