Antimicrobial Stewardship Program
The antimicrobial stewardship program (ASP) for the Memorial Healthcare System (MHS) functions to promote appropriate antimicrobial utilization. Our mission is to optimize antimicrobial use, reduce resistance rates, and decrease adverse events associated with antimicrobials. Our ASP comprises of physicians, pharmacists, nurses, microbiologists, and infection control preventionists whom all share a similar passion for providing safe and appropriate treatments for infectious diseases.
Our infection control and ASP activities are guided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Core Elements of Antimicrobial Stewardship:
- Hospital Leadership Commitment
- Accountability
- Pharmacy expertise
- Action
- Tracking and Reporting
- Education
Memorial Healthcare System’s executive leaders support an active Antimicrobial/Antibiotic Stewardship Program (ASP) as an organizational priority. Antimicrobial stewardship is promoted across our diverse workplace through different committees.
The ASP Clinical Steering Committee is the overseeing body for ASP. MHS ASP Committee is the approving body for any ASP initiative. In addition, each facility has its own ASP committee that explores unique ASP opportunities for its site.
Appointed hospital leaders oversee their facility’s ASP work. Annually, each ASP identifies site-specific benchmarks and metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of their facility’s activity. The outcomes and subsequent reports offer insights about areas for our continued improvement.
We regularly review our performance on an individual facility and aggregate basis. This ongoing self-reflection enables us to continually evolve and expand our multidisciplinary participation to decrease antimicrobial resistance threats.
Meet Our ASP Team
Memorial’s ASP Leadership Steering Committee comprises physicians, pharmacists, nurses, microbiologists and infection preventionists. These professionals all share a passion for safe and appropriate infectious disease treatments.
Learn About Our ASP Processes/Protocols
Our pharmacists attend patient rounds in many of our facilities. Participating in rounds enables them to collaborate with the infectious disease team and make decisions for patient therapeutic management.
Along with site-specific initiatives, Memorial has adopted systemwide ASP processes and protocols designed to support our mission. They include:
Monitoring and Reporting
Memorial Healthcare System monitors and reports our ASP performance using various metrics and benchmarking tools, such as:
Patient Education
When patients are admitted to our hospitals, our pharmacists review and reconcile their medications, often meeting with them in person. At discharge, patients are provided with medication assistance and educational material through our Transition of Care services.
Antimicrobial Stewardship Training Programs
Memorial has two antimicrobial stewardship training programs: an Infectious Disease Fellowship and a Pharmacy Residency program.
Infectious Disease Fellowship
We offer a two-year Infectious Disease Fellowship for physicians who want to specialize in infectious diseases.
Pharmacy Residency Program
Our one-year PGY2 Infectious Disease Pharmacy Residency Program trains pharmacists to become infectious disease pharmacists.
Infectious Diseases Education
All Memorial employees and practitioners who order, dispense and administer antimicrobials are educated about our ASP practices upon hire and on an ongoing basis.
Our ASP committee distributes a quarterly systemwide infectious disease newsletter. These educational pieces offer up-to-date information on appropriate antimicrobial therapy for prescribers and pharmacy employees.
Clinic and Outpatient Infectious Disease
Memorial Physician’s Group-Division of Infectious Disease and Memorial Primary Care are committed to providing the highest quality of care from the management of simple infections to the most unusual of tropical diseases. Memorial provides the following comprehensive outpatient ASP and infectious services:
- Outpatient ID
- Ryan White HIV/AIDS Clinic
- Hepatitis Clinic
- Clinical Research
- Academic Fellowship
- Clostridium Difficile
- NTM/MAC Lung Disease
- MPOX Prevention and Treatment
- Tropical Medicine
- Immunizations/Vaccinations
- Transplant Infections
- OPAT/CoPAT in collaboration with Memorial Home Infusion
Memorial Employees/Pharmacists
Sign in to our intranet to access:
- Order sets
- Treatment guidelines
- Antimicrobial guidance book