Human resources required for antimicrobial stewardship teams: a Dutch consensus report

Abstract

The hours needed each year are dependent on hospital size and number of stewardship objectives monitored. If all activities are performed at a minimal base (one stewardship objective; minimal staffing standard), time investment was estimated to be 1393 to 2680 hours annually in the early phase, corresponding with 0.87 (300 beds) to 1.68 FTE (1200 beds), with a further increase to minimally 1.25 to 3.18 FTE in the following years with three stewardship objectives monitored (optimal staffing standards during the first few years of implementing an ASP). This consensus on required human resources provides a directive for structural financial support of stewardship teams in the Dutch context. Some stewardship activities (and related time investments) might be specific to the Dutch context and hospital setting. To develop standards for other settings, our methodology could be applied.

Current Practices and Opportunities for Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy in Hospitals: A National Cross-Sectional Survey

“…The Dutch organisation of hospital care and antimicrobial stewardship teams are described in the web-only Supplementary Material S1 [ 18 , 19 , 20 ]. In the Netherlands, OPAT is coordinated from the hospitals.…”

A mandatory indication-registration tool in hospital electronic medical records enabling systematic evaluation and benchmarking of the quality of antimicrobial use: a feasibility study

“…They judged it to be minor or occasionally burdensome [ 23 ]. In the study of ten Oever and colleagues it was shown that the time needed to perform a PPS and report the measurements was 150 and 30 h, respectively [ 26 ]. As a result, quality measurements and improvement activities are either performed on smaller scale, or not performed at all.…”

Mapping hospital antimicrobial stewardship programmes in the Gulf Cooperation Council states against international standards: a systematic review

“…This systematic review identified potential barriers to ASP implementation with reported shortages of ID physicians, and limited contributions from pharmacists, infection control preventionists, microbiologists and nurses [33,35,39,43]. Given the global shortage of healthcare professionals [63] and the difficulties of establishing an ASP team [64,65,66], consideration should be given to optimising the contribution of existing professionals through role extension [67] and professional development [36,68].…”