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Antibiotic resistance is becoming a global health crisis

Factors contributing to the crisis include:

using antibiotics in meat production

consumers not completing full courses of antibiotics

providers prescribing unnecessary antibiotics

If changes are not made we could end up in a post antibiotic era where once treatable illnesses will kill many.

Antibiotic resistance increases the amount of healthcare resources used and healthcare costs.

Government involvement is key to tackling antibiotic resistance.

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Conducting active surveillance of both antibiotic prescriptions and antibiotic resistance patterns can better guide future antibiotic use.

Tracking antibiotic prescriptions will help better direct what practitioners need more education on antibiotic resistance.

One way to monitor the prescriptions of antibiotics is through personalized prescription feedback.

Feedback can target the practices or individual practitioners that are prescribing too many unneeded antibiotics and make them attend classes that teach them about antibiotic resistance and how to better prescribe antibiotics to maintain health in the community and resistance rates low.

Sometimes it is difficult to tell when antibiotics are being prescribed unnecessarily.

Studies have shown that about 2/3 of  antibiotic prescriptions are preceded by bacterial culture.

There are times where waiting for culture results can place a patient's life at risk or they are in severe discomfort.

If a patient is stable then cultures should be performed before prescribing an antibiotic, not only to assist in choosing the best antibiotic but also to make sure a bacterial infection is actually present.

PCR is the fastest way right now to grow bacterial cultures. Preliminary results are available in about 24 hours.

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This problem has no clear answer.

A dynamic approach is needed to prevent further antibiotic resistance.

If the proper systems are in place, there is no doubt that further antibiotic resistance can be curbed.

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Practitioners, consumers, pharmaceutical companies, the government, and many others need to be aware of antimicrobial resistance before it can be prevented.

About 15% of practitioners falsely believe that individual people can develop resistance to a particular antibiotic when in fact it is the bacteria and invading organisms that develop resistance to the drug.

Practitioners who have less than 10 years of experience are less likely to counsel patients on how to take antibiotics or infection control.

One major way consumers can prevent further antibiotic resistance is to take all medications as prescribed.

Outside of the United States, untrained people are allowed to prescribe medications and many medications are available over the counter.

In the past 30 years, there have been no major new types of antibiotics developed.

Re-studying existing antibiotics could also alleviate the resistance burden on currently resistant organisms.

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All healthcare professionals are taught infection control practices. Many times these extra steps that need to be taken are overlooked when taking care of patients.

Making hospital rooms with single beds could help reduce hospital acquired infections.

Educate patients on how they can prevent infections.

Preventative measures to be discussed with patients include:

food handling

household hygiene

the use of hand sanitizer

proper coughing practices

STI prevention

hand hygiene

the use of antibacterial soap

Reducing antibiotic consumption is possible if patients wait a few days to fill their prescriptions.

An additional public health concern is the use of antibiotics for benign conditions like acne.

Practitioners do not want to argue with patients that are adamant on receiving antibiotics as it can decrease patient satisfaction scores.

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References can be viewed at the following link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pjRF-01-5fjQEwO5pLHuAtNlAc3lTKYznrkwbY3spok/edit