American journal of health-system pharmacy : AJHP : official journal of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists
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Am J Health Syst Pharm · May 2021
Impact of pharmacist-led selective audit and feedback on outpatient antibiotic prescribing for UTIs and SSTIs.
An estimated 30% of all outpatient antibiotic prescriptions in the United States are unnecessary. The Joint Commission, in 2016, implemented core elements of performance requiring antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) to expand to outpatient practice settings. A study was conducted to determine whether pharmacist-led audit and feedback would improve antibiotic prescribing for urinary tract infections (UTIs) and skin and soft tissue infection (SSTIs) at 2 primary care practices. ⋯ A pharmacist-led audit-and-feedback outpatient stewardship strategy was demonstrated to achieve significant improvement in outpatient antibiotic prescribing for UTI and SSTI.
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Am J Health Syst Pharm · May 2021
Evaluation of the timing of MRSA PCR nasal screening: How long can a negative assay be used to rule out MRSA-positive respiratory cultures?
Previous studies indicate that the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) nasal assay for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has a consistently high (>95%) negative predictive value (NPV) in ruling out MRSA pneumonia; however, optimal timing of PCR assay specimen and respiratory culture collection is unclear. ⋯ We report high NPVs for up to 2 weeks between specimen collections, which allows clinicians to use a negative MRSA PCR nasal screen assay to rule out MRSA pneumonia, potentially leading to decreased exposure to MRSA-active antibiotics.
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Am J Health Syst Pharm · May 2021
Factors influencing likelihood of COVID-19 vaccination: A survey of Tennessee adults.
To examine the vaccine-related beliefs and behaviors associated with likely hesitancy toward vaccination against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among nonelderly adults. ⋯ Subgroups of the population may prove more challenging to vaccinate against COVID-19, requiring targeted approaches to addressing hesitancy to ensure more-vulnerable populations are adequately covered.