How to Build a Case for an Inpatient Antimicrobial Stewardship Program
The AMMI Canada Antimicrobial Stewardship and Resistance Committee (ASRC) has authored a Business Case document on How to Build a Case for an Inpatient Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (ASP). The intent of this initiative is to facilitate healthcare leaders in acquiring the necessary resources from healthcare administrators to launch or improve their own antimicrobial stewardship programs.
Antimicrobial stewardship is first and foremost a patient safety and quality of care initiative. Through collaboration, antimicrobial stewardship programs provide an opportunity to realize institutional cost avoidance in areas such as pharmacy, infection prevention and control, the microbiology laboratory, and housekeeping. ASPs have the potential to improve patient care and improve patient flow while decreasing costs.
Please read through the documents carefully, bearing in mind the following:
- If you are unfamiliar with using Word or Excel, enlist some local help.
- You will see that this business case is written with a Canadian context in mind, and uses Canadian data where possible. You will find that some of the information may not be relevant to your needs. Modify or delete as necessary.
- Healthcare administrators are busy. Use the information to create a succinct Executive Summary. The Executive Summary should be no longer than 2 pages in length, preferably 1-1.5 pages.
- There are several “place holders” which are highlighted. These require your own input with local data. If you do not have this data, and cannot get it, feel free to delete these sections. We strongly encourage you to try and get local data—it will strengthen your case considerably.
- Similarly, fill the Excel Spreadsheet with as much local data as possible.
All of these files are “open source”; you can use and customize these files as you see fit.
We only ask that you provide AMMI Canada with feedback (2-minute survey) so that we can improve and add to the toolkit for future users.
AMMI Canada’s Antimicrobial Stewardship and Resistance Committee (ASRC) is made up of a group of volunteer members who work towards improving antimicrobial use and reducing or containing antimicrobial resistance. These files were created by the ASRC.
If you need more information or should you have questions, please contact Krystal Sabourin.