CDC has designated November 13-19, 2017 as Antibiotic Awareness Week.  Formerly known as Get Smart About Antibiotic Week, the goal of this one-week observance is to raise awareness of appropriate antibiotic use in the United States.  As in previous years, CDC has suggested a list of activities to promote appropriate antibiotic use which include:

• Highlight US Antibiotic Awareness Week on your website
• Use Antibiotic Awareness Week to kickoff your stewardship program
• Issue a press release
• Distribute educational materials on appropriate antibiotic use to the general public
• Distribute tools and guidelines to healthcare professionals
• Host local events
• Deliver presentations to interested parties
• Post social media messages and participate in the annual Twitter chat
• Share information with your organization’s membership through email or newsletters
• Include content in employee materials

As you can see, there are a number of activities to choose from.  Which of these activities will your facility adopt during Antibiotic Awareness Week?

If you are concerned about having to come up with promotional materials for these activities from scratch, don’t fret!  CDC has provided a number of promotional materials and educational resources free-of-charge.

CDC will also launch an exciting new campaign called “Be Antibiotic Aware — Smart Use, Best Care” to promote appropriate antibiotic use in observance of Antibiotic Awareness Week this year.  The new CDC campaign materials will become available on November 13 through the Be Antibiotic Aware website or the CDC U.S. Antibiotic Awareness Week website.

Additionally, the ASAP website (https://asap.nebraskamed.com) has made available a number of tools and templates that can be used to promote appropriate antibiotic use.  For example, the “Ten Key Points to Appropriate Antibiotic Use in Hospitalized Patients” guidance document can be distributed to facility prescribers as a review or talking points for appropriate antibiotic use in hospitalized patients.

The “Antibiotic Red Flag List” can be modified into a trivia challenge for pharmacists as a review of antibiotic prescribing “irregularities” to watch out for. 

If you are in need of patient educational materials on appropriate antibiotic use, the “Roadmap to Appropriate Antibiotic Use” patient leaflet can be distributed to hospitalized patients receiving antibiotics, or make available the “Antibiotics – When Should You Use Them?” patient pamphlet to ambulatory clinic patients.

If you are working on starting an antibiotic stewardship program in your long-term care facility, then you should consider getting a leadership statement of support signed by your administration and share it with healthcare providers in your facility including physicians and nursing staff.

During the Antibiotic Awareness Week, a blog post will be published each day on this website between November 13 and 17.  The list of blog post topics will include:

• Monday, 11/13: Introduction to antimicrobial stewardship program and Nebraska Medicine/UNMC/ASAP accomplishments that will be highlighted in subsequent blog posts
• Tuesday, 11/14: Antimicrobial stewardship in hospitals
• Wednesday, 11/15: Antimicrobial stewardship in long-term care facilities
• Thursday, 11/16: Antimicrobial stewardship in critical access hospitals
• Friday, 11/17: Antimicrobial stewardship in outpatient clinics

We at Nebraska ASAP and UNMC ID/ASP are excited about the upcoming Antibiotic Awareness Week during November 13 to 19.  We hope you and your facility will fully participate in activities promoting appropriate antibiotic use.