Antimicrobial stewardship in Australian primary care

Angus Thompson¹

¹School of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of Tasmania

Over 80% of all antimicrobial use for human health occurs in primary care, but stewardship in this sector remains less well established than in hospitals.

Without improvements to antimicrobial stewardship in primary care, the benefits of hospital stewardship are likely to be undermined, as sub-optimal antimicrobial use in the community can result in a range of undesirable outcomes including increased antimicrobial resistance, treatment failure, hospital admission, and increased costs.

Whilst the structure of primary care creates some challenges to optimising antimicrobial stewardship in this setting, there is a strong will to address these challenges amongst various stakeholders. Whilst various initiatives are already underway that may yield improvements, others are likely to be needed and examples of best practice will need to be more widely applied. Evidence suggests that successful stewardship in the community needs to be multifaceted and whilst some elements can be informed by experiences in the hospital setting and from primary care overseas, others will need to be tailored to meet the specific needs of Australian primary care, if they are to have a meaningful impact.

In this session, we will hear more about the challenges and potential solutions to improving antimicrobial stewardship in primary care in Australia.

Biography:

Angus Thompson is a Lecturer in Therapeutics and Pharmacy Practice at the University of Tasmania, Pharmacist Clinical Editor at Primary Health Tasmania and a Consulting Clinical Pharmacist conducting Home Medicines Reviews in Southern Tasmania.  

Angus started his career as a hospital pharmacist in the UK and for 9 years prior to relocating to Australia he worked as an NHS and then Independent Prescribing Advisor, working with General Practice teams to promote evidence based and cost-effective prescribing. 

Throughout his career, Angus has been involved with initiatives to improve antimicrobial prescribing. In this session Angus will discuss some of the challenges we face in optimising Antimicrobial Stewardship in Primary Care and propose some possible solutions.