Antibiotic stewardship can be described as the measures put in place to enhance effective prescription and administration of antibiotics by the health team to the clients.
This is necessary so as to prevent things like; adverse effects of antibiotics, Unnecessary administration of antibiotics to patients, and Most importantly; reduce the increasing rate of antibiotics resistance.
It is no news that there is an increasing rate of antimicrobial resistance where it seems as though these drugs are not working effectively in their duty to combat these organisms. This is due to things like incomplete treatment dosage, using general broad spectrum antibiotics to treat all cases of infection without proper diagnosis and findings.
So what's the role of a nurse in Antibiotic Stewardship?
Well, it's an obvious fact that in the health care team, no one comes in contact with the clients/ patients than the nurses. So the nurses have a huge role to play as Advocates of the clients by:
- Ensuring that proper blood test and any other prescribed test are done to diagnose effectively the infection.
- Obtaining accurate History of patients especially drug history so as to ascertain things like; previous drugs used, and drug allergies.
- the nurse can also intiate an Antibiotic timeout where the patient is stopped from using the antibiotics for some time so as to know how well the drug is effective and if he can continue with the antibiotic or have a change of prescription.
- lastly, the nurses ensure that the 5R of drugs administration is strictly adhered to. These 5R are; Right drug, right route, right time, right dose and right patient.
Antibiotic Stewardship is not confined to the four walls of the hospital. It is our duty to educate the society at large if we really want to win the fight against the rapid rise in antimicrobial resistance. Methods that can be used to achieve this includes
- teaching the up and coming medical professionals who are still in school/training the importance of antibiotic stewardship. Most health workers are learning about this while they are already a licensed professional but teaching the young ones who are still coming will help improve it's practice and efficiency.
- holding public Seminar targeted at different age groups and at different interval. Educating the public all at once might be good but we are more concerned at getting the information to their heads not just gathering a large crowd. So achieve this the seminar should be compartmentalized into various age groups and the message should be preached According to their level of assimilation. This will enable the health team to Carry the society along in the fight against antimicrobial resistance using antibiotic stewardship.
The role of a nurse in Antibiotic Stewardship is very well intertwined with the roles of various health department so the nurse must work hand in hand with everyone on the health team if he or she is to effectively carry out his role.
These I believe are necessary steps that would improve antibiotics stewardship in our hospital and the society at large.
Let me know what you think in the comment section below. Thank you.
Here, doctors are the ones that prescribe drugs and leave instructions with nurses on how to administer them. Especially when a patient is in admission at the hospital.
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