Antimicrobial Stewardship team protecting antibiotics for the future

At Rockingham General Hospital (RGH), the Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) team is going the extra mile to ensuring antibiotics and other antimicrobials are used in the most responsible way possible.

Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria stop responding to antibiotics that were once effective.

To tackle this challenge, the AMS team carefully reviews prescriptions, provides education to staff and runs audits to make sure antibiotics are used appropriately at RGH.

The team includes infectious diseases physicians and a dedicated AMS pharmacist, as part of a national program supported by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. The program works towards minimising the development and spread of antimicrobial resistance and reduce healthcare-associated infections across the country.

At RGH, they work with the AMS Committee who oversees this work and includes staff from medical, nursing, pharmacy and clinical governance teams.

Reducing resistance is a long-term effort, but the AMS team has seen success with point-of-care interventions.

This means providing feedback to clinical teams about the best antibiotic choices for patients, such as encouraging a switch from intravenous to oral antibiotics when clinically appropriate, narrowing treatment when possible, and stopping antibiotics once an infection has resolved.

AMS pharmacist, Mona Khalessi-Rad is committed to working alongside doctors, pharmacists and nurses in our ongoing efforts to help slow down resistance.

“Antimicrobial resistance is one of the most serious health challenges of our time. Our ability to treat infections in the future depends on how responsibly we use antimicrobials today,” says Mona.

“Every decision we make about prescribing antimicrobials matters – not just for our patients in hospital but for the entire community and for future generations.”

Looking ahead, the AMS team will continue working with staff, patients, carers and the wider community to raise awareness about how we can all play a part in protecting the use of antimicrobials to ensure these life-saving medicines continue to do their job for many years to come.

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