CDC - Get Smart for Healthcare

Drug Resistance - New Toolkit: CDC Expands Recommendations
Get Smart for Healthcare - Get Smart Week 2011
New Online Educational Series Antimicrobial Stewardship in Practice

Studies indicate that nearly 50% of antimicrobial use in hospitals is unnecessary or inappropriate. There is no doubt that this overuse of antibiotics is contributing to the growing challenges posed by Clostridium difficile and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria in many hospitals. However, studies also demonstrate that improving the use of antibiotics in hospitals can not only help reduce rates of Clostridium difficile infection and antibiotic resistance, but can also improve individual patient outcomes, all while saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in healthcare costs. Get Smart for Healthcare is a CDC campaign focused on improving antibiotic use in inpatient healthcare facilities, starting with hospitals and then expanding to long-term care facilities.

The goal of Get Smart for Healthcare is to optimize the use of antimicrobial agents in inpatient healthcare settings by focusing on strategies to help hospitals and other inpatient facilities implement interventions to improve antibiotic use. Interventions and programs designed to improve antibiotic use are also referred to as “antimicrobial stewardship.”

Get Smart Campaign

Getsmart for Healthcare - Widgets

CDC Medscape Commentary:
Taking an Antibiotic Timeout [ 4:54 ]

November 15, 2010

Fast Facts

Cost for antibiotics like pills and injections

Antibiotics are a shared resource – and becoming a scarce resource.
Approximately 50% of antibiotic use in hospitals is unnecessary or inappropriate.
Reducing unnecessary antibiotic use can decrease antimicrobial resistance, Clostridium difficile infections, and healthcare costs, and improve patient outcomes.