Journal of Pharmaceutical Care & Health Systems
Open Access

Antibiotic stewardship program: An organizational framework to in a tertiary hospital in South-East Asia

15^th Asia-Pacific Pharma Congress

July 18-20, 2018 Melbourne, Australia

Sook Muay TAY

Singapore General Hospital, Singapore

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Pharma Care Health Sys

Abstract :

Singapore General Hospital (SGH) is the first and largest hospital in Singapore. It provides affordable specialist care for patients, training for doctors and other healthcare professionals, and conducts research to bring better care to its patients. Every year, the SGH Campus caters to over 1 million patients. With a 10,000-strong workforce, SGH accounts for about a quarter of the total acute hospital beds in the public sector and about one-fifth of acute beds nationwide. The Antimicrobial Stewardship Unit (ASU) in SGH is a multidisciplinary team, composed of infectious diseases physicians, pharmacists and an executive who are responsible for directing complementary multi-pronged efforts to promote safe, optimal and costeffective use of antimicrobials via several antimicrobial stewardship strategies. One of the strategies involves the prospective audit feedback of selected targeted broad-spectrum antimicrobials. Patients who are prescribed with targeted antimicrobials (e.g. Carbapenems, Piperacillin-Tazobactam, IV Ciprofloxacin and IV Levofloxacin) are reviewed holistically by the ASU pharmacists. In the event where the antibiotic is inappropriately or sub-optimally prescribed, cases will be discussed with the ASU physician and suggestions given which typically include antimicrobial discontinuation when a bacterial infection is deemed less likely or when the infection has been adequately treated, de-escalation of antimicrobials to narrower- spectrum agents and IV-to-PO switch. The goal of antimicrobial stewardship is to reduce inappropriate antimicrobial use, improve patient care outcomes and minimize unintended consequences of antimicrobial use such as antimicrobial resistance, acquiring Clostridium difficile infections, unnecessary antimicrobial drug costs and antimicrobial-related complications.

Biography :

Sook Muay TAY is Associate Dean at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at Singapore General Hospital. She is a senior consultant anaesthesiologist with a special interest in liver transplantation anaesthesiology, burns intensive care medicine and the psychology of learning and development. She is a highly experienced medical educator and has been the Lead Clinical Educator at Singapore General Hospital since 2012. Her many education activities include being an ATLS Course Educator (Train the Trainers programme) and a facilitator for the 7 Habits programme at Singapore General Hospital. She also served as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Office of Education, Duke NUS Graduate Medical School. Adj A/P Tay has published many papers on anaesthesiology and educational practice as well as co-authored in the book Anaesthesia for Emergency Medicine (World Scientific Publishing, 2004). She is currently involved in a variety of research projects examining clinician work practices and burns treatment.

E-mail: mtay.sook.muay@singhealth.com.sg