Taylor Boyd

Direct Patient Education on Antibiotic Stewardship in an Outpatient Setting

Mentor: Lucy Hansen, MD

Department: Pediatrics and Rural and Underserved Utah Training Experience & Regional Affairs

Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem, and critical access hospitals often do not have the infrastructure to care for patients with severe antibiotic resistant infections. Interviews with physicians, other healthcare providers, and community members indicated that infectious disease was a substantial problem in Moab, Utah, and that urgent care settings often struggled with antibiotic stewardship. Moab Regional Hospital had previously attempted to begin an antibiotic education campaign but were unable to continue due to time and staffing constraints. A literature review showed that although antibiotic stewardship is widely thought to be important, many providers did not have the bandwidth to educate patients on antibiotic use. Furthermore, many national and international groups are attempting to increase patient education about antibiotic resistant bacteria, but such large-scale education campaign are difficult to complete. Because an urgent care provider had discussed how pre-visit educational materials had been useful in the past, I created a poster on antibiotic stewardship, infection testing and prevention, and individual actions for patient rooms. I then reached out to the hospital to get it approved, and a local multicultural organization to translate it into Spanish. Possible next steps include increasing education materials and reaching out to the laboratory to track resistance patterns over time.