Impact of antibiotic stewardship on perioperative antimicrobial prophylaxis.

Objective: Antibiotic prophylaxis (AP) is useful to prevent antimicrobial overuse, misuse and abuse, as well against the occurrence of surgical site infections (SSIs). This study aimed to describe the implementation of a quality improvement intervention on AP for elective surgery, as informal interviews showed a lower than expected compliance with internal recommendations, and to evaluate intervention's effect in terms of main drug consumption.

Design: A quality improvement intervention on all elective cases within 14 main surgical departments was performed.