Antibiotic Awareness

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) is joining Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in a national effort to combat the growing threat of antibiotic resistance by asking Colorado health care providers to Be Antibiotics Aware. It is estimated that nearly one-third of antibiotic courses prescribed in doctors’ offices and emergency rooms are unnecessary. Improving antibiotic prescribing is a national priority to combat antibiotic resistance.

During U.S. Antibiotic Awareness Week (USAAW), November 18-24, we are kicking off our Antibiotic Awareness Initiative by providing updated data and resources for appropriate use of antimicrobials.

CDPHE’s Antibiotic Awareness Week outreach goals are to mobilize health care stewardship teams and educate our community members to take action and optimize antibiotic use.

This year, CDPHE is highlighting antimicrobial stewardship in oral health settings. Check out our resources section below for links to tools to support stewardship in dentistry!

All providers can access CDC's Be Antibiotic Aware information and CDPHE’s local data and resources to improve antibiotic prescribing and use in all settings and help combat antibiotic resistance 52 weeks a year.

Check out our social media messaging during USAAW Nov.18-24

Core elements updates

CDPHE updated the data reporting engagement with the Core Elements of Antibiotic Stewardship in Colorado hospitals for 2023. Click the image to the right to find additional details, such as visualization of trends over time, core elements, and priorities for hospital core element implementation.

priorities for core element implementation

case banner with microbe images

We encourage hospital-based antimicrobial stewards to REGISTER for our Colorado Antimicrobial Stewardship Endeavor (CASE) workshops that begin in November and continue through July. CASE provides workshops, office hours, and one–on-one program consultations to support antimicrobial stewardship in the acute care setting. Since 2021, CASE has helped antimicrobial stewardship programs improve tracking, monitoring, and reporting protocols and provide resources such as treatment guidelines and dosing recommendations. Include CASE in your quality management program and REGISTER today!

Register for CASE

Firstline app: Keeping Colorado Healthy, One Antibiotic Choice at a Time

Antimicrobial stewardship is one of the best tools we have to fight back against antimicrobial resistance. While there are multiple guidelines for common infectious processes, applying them at the local level can be a time-consuming challenge. Children’s Hospital Colorado and Denver Health have partnered with Firstline to create a mobile app to change that.

Firstline houses clinical pathways from Children’s and Denver health (inpatient and outpatient), along with antimicrobial dosing information, pathogen information, infection prevention information, and more. It is intended for use in all clinical settings. The app is free to download, and is available on iOS and Android devices, as well as a web-based format. No matter your specialty or practice, we are all stewards. We can all work together in keeping Colorado healthy, one antibiotic choice at a time.

Use the QR code above to find our app. Once downloaded, you can set your location to Denver Health and/or Children’s Hospital Colorado to access all of our materials. Once in the app, clicking on the FirstLine logo in the top left corner will allow you to toggle between locations to access adult vs pediatric guidance. Contact cdphe_hai_ar@state.co.us for more information or feedback!

CDPHE tools and resources

CDC updated its Antibiotic Resistance and Patient Safety Portal to include Antimicrobial Stewardship trends nationwide and Colorado. This site includes interactive graphs and reports of inpatient and outpatient antibiotic use.

Long-term care facilities

Nurses and members of care teams in long-term care settings can use tools and resources to support antimicrobial stewardship.

CDPHE’s Antibiotic Tracking Tool for LTCF. Please utilize this tool within Google Sheets to track antibiotic usage and infection types among residents. If you need to work with an Excel file of the tool, please email us with your request.

Antibiotic use in nursing homes: a summary of guideline recommendations for common indicationsThis is a summary of existing published evidence-based guidance for urinary tract infection, community-acquired bacterial pneumonia, and skin and soft tissue infection. This summary is a tool to assist outpatient nursing home antimicrobial stewardship programs to support goals of “right antibiotic,” “right dose,” and “right duration.”

Use the Antibiotic Time-Out Checklist to take a Time-Out to reassess appropriateness of an antibiotic within 48-72 hours after the antibiotic start date.

question: does the resident have new or worsening signs or symptoms?

Suspected Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) Action Tool - Nursing staff can use this resource to guide in the initial evaluation of possible UTI in residents without a urinary catheter.

CDC Core Elements for Nursing Homes provides guidelines for improving Nursing Home Antibiotic Stewardship.

AHRQ Toolkit to improve Antibiotic Use in Long-Term Care provides guidelines for reviewing patient prescriptions together as a care team.

Resources

CDC's Be Antibiotics Aware Partner Toolkit includes key messages, newsletters, and social media content for sharing during USAAW, which can also be found below.