UCA Renews Campaign to Boost Antibiotics Best Practices

The Urgent Care Association, long a proponent of sound antibiotic stewardship as a safeguard against drug-resistant bacteria, is working with the George Washington University Antibiotic Resistance Center on an initiative to improve antibiotic prescribing practices. One key element, through the College of Urgent Care Medicine, is an antibiotic stewardship toolkit based on the Core Elements of Outpatient Antibiotic Stewardship developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. UCA also just took part in—and sponsored—a summit for the purpose of analyzing sound antibiotic stewardship in the outpatient setting. Representatives from the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at Milken Institute of Public Health at George Washington University, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CUCM, and the Urgent Care Foundation (UCF) all took part. Laurel Stoimenoff, chief executive officer of UCA, called antibiotic resistance “a critical public health threat that must be countered with strong antibiotic stewardship efforts across the entire healthcare industry.” According to the CDC, over 2 million people every year become infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria; more than 23,000 of them die as a result.