The iv to oral switch interventions should tailor strategies to demystify iv versus oral antibiotic efficacy, engage consumers around the negative effects of iv antibiotic overuse and examine strategies to streamline team decision-making. Addressing these issues has the potential to reduce inappropriate antibiotic use and resistance.

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ObjectiveTo understand Australian hospital pharmacists’ accounts of antibiotic use, and the potential role of pharmacy in antibiotic optimisation within a tertiary hospital setting.Design, setting and participantsQualitative study, utilising semistructured interviews with 19 pharmacists in two hospitals in Queensland, Australia in 2014. Data was analysed using the framework approach and supported by NVivo10 qualitative data analysis software.ResultsThe results demonstrate that (1) pharmacists’ attitudes are ambivalent towards the significance of antibiotic resistance with optimising antibiotic use perceived as low priority; (2) pharmacists’ current capacity to influence antibiotic decision-making is limited by the prescribing power of doctors and the perception of antibiotic use as a medical responsibility; and, (3) interprofessional and organisational barriers exist that prevent change in the hospital setting including medical hierarchies, limited contact with senior doctors and resource constraints resulting in insufficient pharmacy staffing to foster collaborative relationships and facilitate the uptake of their advice.DiscussionWhile pharmacy is playing an increasingly important role in enhanced antibiotic governance and is a vital component of antimicrobial stewardship in Australia, role-based limitations, interprofessional dynamics and organisational/resource constraints in hospitals, if not urgently addressed, will continue to significantly limit the ability of pharmacy to influence antibiotic prescribing.

BackgroundAntibiotic treatment options for common infections are diminishing due to the proliferation of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The impact of Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) programs seeking to preserve viable antibiotic drugs by governing their use in hospitals has hitherto been limited. Pharmacists have been delegated a critical role in antibiotic governance in AMS teams within hospitals but the experience of pharmacists in influencing antibiotic use has received limited attention. In this study we explore the experiences of pharmacists in antibiotic decision-making in two Australian hospitals.MethodsWe conducted 19 semi-structured interviews to explore hospital-based pharmacists’ perceptions and experiences of antibiotic use and governance. The analysis was conducted with NVivo10 software, utilising the framework approach.ResultsThree major themes emerged in the pharmacist interviews including (1) the responsibilities of pharmacy in optimising antibiotic use and the interprofessional challenges therein; (2) the importance of antibiotic streamlining and the constraints placed on pharmacists in achieving this; and (3) the potential, but often under-utilised expertise, pharmacists bring to antibiotic optimisation.ConclusionsPharmacists have a critical role in AMS teams but their capacity to enact change is limited by entrenched interprofessional dynamics. Identifying how hospital pharmacy’s antibiotic gatekeeping is embedded in the interprofessional nature of clinical decision-making and limited by organisational environment has important implications for the implementation of hospital policies seeking to streamline antibiotic use. Resource constraints (i.e. time limitation and task prioritisation) in particular limit the capacity of pharmacists to overcome the interprofessional barriers through development of stronger collaborative relationships. The results of this study suggest that to enact change in antibiotic use in hospitals, pharmacists must be supported in their negotiations with doctors, have increased presence on hospital wards, and must be given opportunities to pass on specialist knowledge within multidisciplinary clinical teams.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1290-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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