Antimicrobial Stewardship Advisory Committee

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The Antimicrobial Stewardship Advisory Committee has been established by the Commission to promote the optimal use of antimicrobials to maximise treatment efficacy in individuals while minimising the impact of antimicrobial resistance on communities.

  • It provides advice on strategy options for effective antimicrobial stewardship programs for all sectors of the healthcare system; and
  • Makes recommendations to the Commission on implementation and evaluation of the antimicrobial stewardship program.

The committee's focus is on developing and supporting strategies at the national, state, institutional and community.

All members of the committee will have an equal opportunity to contribute to the end result. Each committee member is responsible for developing a particular part of the strategy; their names are beside each outcome.

Strategies for Antimicrobial Stewardship

  1. Persuasive / Educational
    1. Education of prescribers, including the impact of the pharmaceutical industry – Celia Cooper
  2. Restrictive

    Pre prescription
    1. Formulary restriction, antimicrobial cycling and antimicrobial approval systems – Kirsty Buising
    Post prescription

    1. Review of antimicrobial use with direct interaction and feedback to the prescriber – David Maxwell
    2. Point of care interventions – John Turnidge
      1. Directed antimicrobial therapy on the basis of culture results
      2. Dose optimization
      3. Parenteral to oral conversion
Resources

  1. Personnel
    1. Effective institutional antimicrobial stewardship teams (including governance) – Helen van Gessel
    2. Role of clinical microbiologists and laboratory – John Ferguson
      1. Antibiograms
      2. Selective reporting
    3. Role of infectious diseases physicians (local policy development) – Celia Cooper
    4. Role of pharmacists – Margaret Duguid
  2. Tools
    1. Integration of stewardship programs into electronic decision support systems and new technology platforms – Karin Thursky
Evaluation, Audit and feedback
  1. Effective use of collective surveillance data – David Looke


Members

Dr Celia Cooper (Chair)
Clinical Director of Pathology & Head of Microbiology & Infections Diseases, SA

Graham Bedford
Medication Safety Program Manager, ACSQHC

Dr Kirsty Buising
Infections Diseases Physician, VIC

Dr Marilyn Cruickshank
Healthcare Associated Infection Program Manager, ACSQHC

Margaret Duguid
Medication Safety Pharmaceutical Advisor, ACSQHC

Dr John Ferguson
Director, Infection Prevention & Control Unit, NSW

Dr Helen van Gessel
Infections diseases Physician & Senior Clinical Advisor, WA

David Maxwell
Council of Australian Therapeutic Advisory Groups (CATAG)

Dr David Looke
Senior Staff Specialist in Infectious Diseases & Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, QLD

David Kong
Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia

Dr Karin Thursky
Infectious Diseases Physician, VIC

Professor John Turnidge
Chief, Division of Laboratory Medicine, SA

Meetings

29 July 2008 – Teleconference
20 August 2008 – Meeting 1, Sydney
19 November 2008 – meeting 1, Sydney



Updated: 17 September, 2008

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