Killing antimicrobial stewardship (part 2)

I posted a piece regarding the 21st Century Cures Act, which would provide incentives to hospitals to use new antibiotics. This is terrible policy, in my opinion. Through comments on Twitter and this blog, as well as conversations with colleagues, there was concern raised that my cited source was incorrect. While the New York Times is not infallible, it's pretty damn good. In all honesty, I read the text of the bill myself before posting but found it unintelligible (maybe I was too tired at the time).

Anyway, a highly reputable group, the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy (CDDEP), has bailed me out. They cite the same sentence from the New York Times editorial that I did in my previous post, and add, ”We at CDDEP couldn't agree more.” Even better, they argue that stewardship not development of new drugs is the ultimate solution to the antibiotic resistance crisis. I highly recommend their post, which you can find here.

Michael B. Edmond, MD, FACP, is a hospital epidemiologist in Iowa City, IA, with a focus on improving the quality and safety of health care, and sees patients in the inpatient and outpatient settings. This post originally appeared at the blog Controversies in Hospital Infection Prevention.