This book is a joint effort led by five editors, Kerry L. LaPlante, Cheston B. Cunha, Haley J. Morrill, Louis B. Rice, and Eleftherios Mylonakis, with a team of section editors and the authors, who have brought together 38 chapters that describe the principles and practice of antimicrobial...

In this chapter, we provide an overview of how an outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) can best be employed to promote safe, effective treatment of infection that requires extended courses of intravenous therapy, based on guidelines from the Infectious Diseases Society of America...

This chapter gives an overview about: the role of the hospitalist; the hospitalist and antimicrobial stewardship; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention perspective. In summary, antimicrobial stewardship is critical to every institution. In an era where hospitals and health care systems are ...

This chapter will examine common factors that facilitate the colonization and subsequent infection and transmission of antimicrobial-resistant healthcare-associated pathogens. The primary focus will be intestinal colonization and the critical role of antimicrobial selective pressure. Findings from...

This chapter gives an overview about: goals, elements, and methods of surveillance; use of electronic medical records; use of active surveillance cultures; use of the NHSN surveillance protocol; MRSA surveillance; VRE surveillance; surveillance of Gram-negative organisms; the role of active...

This chapter will: highlight specific categories of diagnostics that have shown clear outcome benefits, or the potential for benefits in conjunction with antibiotic stewardship efforts; identify components to consider when implementing a rapid technology, and trends in diagnostics for infectious...

This chapter gives an overview about the hospital epidemiologist and antimicrobial stewardship. It is concluded that working together, a healthcare facility's antimicrobial stewardship and infection prevention and control teams can jointly improve patient outcomes through a reduction in MDRO and...

Creating an institutional IV to PO conversion policy is an easy way for antimicrobial stewardship programmes to demonstrate value while improving patient outcomes, reducing resistance, reducing cost, and improving patient safety. This chapter will further discuss the reasons behind IV to PO...

This chapter reviews the components of an antimicrobial stewardship programme (ASP) that are required for the successful reduction of antimicrobial expenditures, especially through formulary management and the optimization of patient therapy and outcomes, with the final goal of reducing the burden...

This chapter gives an overview about: metrics of antibiotic use for benchmarking; risk adjustment for antibiotic usage; quality-based benchmarking. It is suggested that benchmarking their antibiotic use against that of other hospitals can help hospitals to identify areas where antibiotic use can be ...