Background: Understanding factors associated with antimicrobial resistance (AMR) distribution across populations is a necessary step in planning mitigation measures. While associations between AMR and socioeconomic-status (SES), including employment and education have been increasingly recognized in low- and middle-income settings, connections are less clear in high-income countries where SES remains an important influence on other health outcomes.
Methods: We explored the relationship between SES and AMR in Calgary, Canada using spatially-resolved wastewater-based surveillance of resistomes detected by metagenomics across eight socio-economically diverse urban neighborhoods.
Antimicrob Resist Infect Control
December 2024
Background: The necessity of post procedural prophylactic antibiotics following clean surgeries is controversial. While most evidence suggests that there is no benefit from these additional antibiotics and guidelines do not support their use, there is a paucity of evidence as to how often they are still being used and their impact on infection outcomes. The current study assessed the use of prophylactic antibiotics following cardiac implantable electronic device (CIED) implantations in the province of Alberta, and their impact on infection and mortality.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Antimicrobial use data from inpatients in northern Canada suitable to inform stewardship programs are limited.
Objective: As a special project of the Canadian Nosocomial Infection Surveillance Program, to describe antimicrobial use for inpatients in northern Canadian acute care hospitals.
Methods: Participating acute care hospitals serving adult or mixed adult and pediatric populations in northern Canada submitted annual data on the use of all systemic antimicrobials from 2019 to 2021.
N Engl J Med
November 2024
Background: Bloodstream infections are associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Early, appropriate antibiotic therapy is important, but the duration of treatment is uncertain.
Methods: In a multicenter, noninferiority trial, we randomly assigned hospitalized patients (including patients in the intensive care unit [ICU]) who had bloodstream infection to receive antibiotic treatment for 7 days or 14 days.
Objective: We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of a bundled intervention including an antimicrobial stewardship program (ASP), procalcitonin (PCT) testing, and rapid blood culture identification (BCID), compared with pre-implementation standard care in critically ill adult patients with sepsis.
Methods: We conducted a decision tree model-based cost-effectiveness analysis alongside a previously published pre- and post-implementation quality improvement study. We adopted a public Canadian healthcare payer's perspective.