To determine how pharmacists with formal antimicrobial stewardship program (ASP) responsibilities prioritize their time and pharmacists without formal antimicrobial stewardship program responsibilities contribute to ASP activities.

A nationwide survey.

Members of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy who subscribe to the following practice and research network e-mail listservs: infectious diseases, adult medicine, cardiology, critical care, hematology–oncology, immunology and transplantation, and pediatrics.

A survey was distributed via listservs. Respondents were asked about their personal and institutional demographics and ASP activities.

In total, 245 pharmacists responded: 135 pharmacists with formal antimicrobial stewardship program responsibilities; 110 pharmacists without formal antimicrobial stewardship program responsibilities. Although most respondents had completed a general pharmacy residency (85%), only 20% had completed an infectious diseases (ID) specialty residency. Among pharmacists with formal antimicrobial stewardship program responsibilities, one-third had no formal training or certification in ID or ASP. Pharmacists without formal antimicrobial stewardship program responsibilities spent ∼12.5% of their time per week on ASP activities, whereas pharmacists with formal antimicrobial stewardship program responsibilities spent 28% of their time performing non-ASP activities. Pharmacists with formal antimicrobial stewardship program responsibilities were more likely than pharmacists without formal antimicrobial stewardship program responsibilities to perform antibiotic guideline development (P < .001), antibiotic-related education (P = .002), and direct notification of rapid diagnostic results (P = .018). Pharmacists with formal antimicrobial stewardship program responsibilities without formal ID training or certification spent less time on ASP activities and were more likely to perform lower-level interventions.

Many ASP activities are being performed by pharmacists without formal ID training. To ensure the future success of ASPs, pharmacists with formal antimicrobial stewardship program responsibilities should have adequate training to meet more advanced metrics, and more pharmacists without formal antimicrobial stewardship program responsibilities should be included in basic interventions.

To determine the usefulness of adjusting antibiotic use (AU) by prevalence of bacterial isolates as an alternative method for risk adjustment beyond hospital characteristics.

Retrospective, observational, cross-sectional study.

Hospitals in the southeastern United States.

AU in days of therapy per 1,000 patient days and microbiologic data from 2015 and 2016 were collected from 26 hospitals. The prevalences of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)–producing bacteria, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) were calculated and compared to the average prevalence of all hospitals in the network. This proportion was used to calculate the adjusted AU (a-AU) for various categories of antimicrobials. For example, a-AU of antipseudomonal β-lactams (APBL) was the AU of APBL divided by (prevalence of P. aeruginosa at that hospital divided by the average prevalence of P. aeruginosa). Hospitals were categorized by bed size and ranked by AU and a-AU, and the rankings were compared.

Most hospitals in 2015 and 2016, respectively, moved ≥2 positions in the ranking using a-AU of APBL (15 of 24, 63%; 22 of 26, 85%), carbapenems (14 of 23, 61%; 22 of 25; 88%), anti-MRSA agents (13 of 23, 57%; 18 of 26, 69%), and anti-VRE agents (18 of 24, 75%; 15 of 26, 58%). Use of a-AU resulted in a shift in quartile of hospital ranking for 50% of APBL agents, 57% of carbapenems, 35% of anti-MRSA agents, and 75% of anti-VRE agents in 2015 and 50% of APBL agents, 28% of carbapenems, 50% of anti-MRSA agents, and 58% of anti-VRE agents in 2016.

The a-AU considerably changes how hospitals compare among each other within a network. Adjusting AU by microbiological burden allows for a more balanced comparison among hospitals with variable baseline rates of resistant bacteria.