Implementation Science
The Implementation Division partners with the Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center Antimicrobial Stewardship program.
This division is focused on implementing interventions to improve antibiotic use and patient outcomes and promoting the appropriate and safe use of antibiotics. This division supports research related to the development, adoption, and analysis of evidence-based antimicrobial stewardship approaches to improve antimicrobial use and ultimately the care of our patients in all health-care settings. The implementation division uses qualitative and quantitative methods to assess the effectiveness and implementation success of antibiotic stewardship interventions.
The division has also used qualitative uantitateive methods to operationalize definitions of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing, including elements of drug choice, dose, duration, and de-escalation, to identify predictors of inappropriate prescribing and identify targets for antibiotic stewardship interventions.
The program has developed and implemented formal antibiotic restrictions, pathways, treatment guidelines, and other educational initiatives based on local resistance patterns and antibiotic use data. The program publishes an annually updated Antimicrobial Guidebook, which contains empiric treatment guidelines, recommendations for dosing, infection control policies, and an antibiogram of resistance rates (2004-present). The team has implemented and tested antimicrobial stewardship strategies in long-term care settings and is expanding efforts to the outpatient setting.