Improving Antibiotic Overuse in Primary Care

Abstract

Purpose Antibiotic overuse has increased over time related to provider knowledge gaps about best practices, provider perception of patient expectations on receiving an antibiotic, possible pressure to see patients in a timely fashion, and concerns about decreased patient satisfaction when an antibiotic is not prescribed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that up to 30% of antibiotics are inappropriately prescribed in the outpatient setting. Approach This quality improvement project consisted of a multimodal approach to decrease inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for viral upper respiratory infections (URIs) by using provider education, passive patient education, and clinical decision support tools based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations and the Be Antibiotic Aware tool. Outcomes Following implementation, there was an 11% decrease in viral URI antibiotic prescribing, from a rate of 29.33% to 18.33% following the multimodal implementation. Conclusion The use of evidence-based education and treatment guidelines was found to decrease inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for patients diagnosed with viral URIs.