Electronic data collection tools for quality improvement: antibiotic utilization project.

The project goal is to provide data on patterns of broad-spectrum antibiotic use in a pediatric clinic by utilizing electronic data collection tools. This was carried out as a quality improvement project sponsored by a local health network and one of its affiliated pediatric clinics. Pharmacy data was available to show relative rates of broad-spectrum antibiotic use, but this data was not linked to diagnostic categories or to total patient visits.