Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

50 ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE & STEWARDSHIP Tufts launches antimicrobial resistance research center By Mackenzie Bean B oston-based Tufts Medical Center and Medford, Mass.-based Tufts University created a center dedicated to fighting antimicrobial resistance, the entities announced March 7. The Tufts Center for Integrated Management of Antimicrobial Resistance will conduct research, create policy recommendations and develop edu- cational programs to address multidrug-resistant infections. A multidisciplinary team of researchers from Tufts University and Tufts Medical Center will work at the center. "We want to use Tufts CIMAR to get people talking to each other to see how our research interfaces," Ralph Isberg, PhD, co-director of the center and a professor of molecular biology and microbiology at Tufts, said in a press release. "The goal then is to start collaborative projects that will allow us to make major contributions to attacking multidrug-re- sistant organisms." n Physicians more likely to receive antibiotic prescription training than nurses, pharmacists By Anuja Vaidya T raining and support related to antibiotic prescribing is lower among nurses and pharmacists than physicians, according to a study published in Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control. Researchers surveyed participants in a Massive Online Open Course on antibiotic stewardship. The global survey focused on available organi- zational resources for stewardship. They invited 920 participants to take the survey, of which 505 from 53 countries responded. Respondents included physicians (36 percent), pharmacists (26 percent), nurses (18 percent) and other (20 percent). Four survey findings: • Fifty-six percent of physicians reported postgraduate training in infection management and stewardship as compared with 43 percent of nurses and 35 percent of pharmacists. • Hospitals were significantly more likely to have antibiotic policies than primary care facilities. • Fifty-eight percent of teaching hospitals and 62 percent of regional hospitals had a surveillance mechanism for antibiotic consumption. • Antimicrobial resistance, patient needs, policy, peer influence and specialty-level culture and practices were deemed important decision-making factors. n Researchers develop system to map out areas of antibiotic resistance By Jackie Drees U niversity of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy researchers designed a system that can map out antibiotic trends across the state. e map tool, called AMR Tracker, is designed to resemble a weather map and provides insight on the probability of whether a pathogen will respond to a particular antibiotic. To develop the tool, researchers analyzed 202 antibiograms, or tables of antibiotic resistance, from Wisconsin hospitals between 2009 and 2015. e antibiograms displayed the susceptibil- ity of 200,000 strains of E. coli to seven classes of drugs. e researchers then plotted the data on a map of the state and used cartographic methods from the state's cartographer's office to stitch together points and produce regions of antibiotic susceptibility. Results of the AMR Tracker showed strong vari- ation geographically across Wisconsin, and that antibiotic resistance was much greater in denser, more urban regions of the state and in valleys. Re- searchers published their findings in the American Society for Microbiology. While researchers concluded they are not sure what factors caused the "pockets of antibiotic resistance," they are continuing to analyze factors including population density, animal agriculture and antibiotic use patterns. e team is also work- ing on partnering with hospitals to determine how AMR Tracker can be implemented into physician workflows in the future. "With antibiotic resistance, we've seen this prob- lem grow very slowly over the past century, and it's an enormous threat," Laurel Legenza, PharmD, the project's leader and interim director of global health at the UW–Madison School of Pharmacy, said in a news release. "We know there's an oppor- tunity to improve by selecting an antibiotic that considers the local antibiotic resistance trend. And that's really the heart of the project, is to provide data in a visualization that would improve its use and application directly to patient care." n

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