Medical News: ASHP: Pharmacy Review Cuts Cost of MRSA Treatment - in Meeting Coverage, ASHP from MedPage Today.
Pharmacist review of physician orders for antibiotics targeting methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) improved adherence to antibiotic treatment guidelines and decreased spending on anti-infective drugs by 20%, a researcher reported here. The antimicrobial stewardship program, in which linezolid or daptomycin could only be given to patients meeting guidelines for their use, such as after failure on vancomycin, increased the percentage of patients meeting the guidelines for receiving linezolid from 26% to 71% (P=0.0006), according to Lori Eskridge, PharmD, of Cardinal Health Pharmacy Solutions and Town & Country Hospital in Tampa, Fla., and colleagues.
