Bradley, Gary

The inappropriate use of antibiotics to treat non-bacterial infections has contributed to one of the public health problems resulting in antibiotic resistance (CDC, 2019). The purpose of this DNP project was to analyze providers’ awareness and beliefs regarding antibiotic use and resistance and to evaluate the effect of an antibiotic stewardship program on urgent care providers’ antibiotic prescribing for acute bronchitis. The overall goal is to decrease antibiotic resistant infections by reducing inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for a viral infection. To achieve this goal, a quality improvement initiative was conducted with five participating urgent care providers. Pre-RAMP intervention there was an average of 64% of over prescribing antibiotic for acute bronchitis, post-RAMP intervention was 18% which was a 71.8% reduction of over prescribing for acute bronchitis. With continuation of the RAMP intervention, at a greater scale, it will produce a sample size with enough data to fully support the cause for awareness of antibiotic prescribing for safe and quality patient care.