Intermountain Health logo

Please enter the city or town where you'd like to find care.

Get care nowSign in

Health news and blog

    How Do You Balance Anti-microbial Use

    How Do You Balance Anti-microbial Use

    microbe

    The SCORE Antimicrobial Stewardship study is gathering data to answer this question: "What is the appropriate level of antibiotic stewardship for community hospitals?" SCORE stands for "Stewardship in Community Hospitals - Optimizing Outcomes and Resources."

     

    Why is the SCORE study important?
    Various sources have estimated that up to 50% of antibiotic use is inappropriate, which leads to decreased patient safety and comfort, increased costs to both patients and healthcare systems, and increased antibiotic resistance in disease-causing organisms.

    Antimicrobial stewardship programs provide a toolkit of techniques to ensure that we are using our antimicrobials appropriately. While stewardship programs in large urban hospitals have been well studied, there have not been adequate studies looking at stewardship (in particular, the appropriate level of stewardship) in community hospitals. The SCORE study is focusing on this gap.

     

    What are the study details?
    The SCORE study is a prospective, randomized study of 15 Intermountain community hospitals. Each hospital is randomized into one of three levels of intervention. Data is being gathered on the effect of different levels of stewardship programs on each hospital.



    Who can I contact for more information?


    Primary Contact 
    Peter Jones, MSLS
    Project Consultant
    score@imail.org
    801-50-SCORE (72673) 

    Principal Investigator:
    Eddie Stenehjem, MD, MS
    Medical Director, Antibiotic Stewardship
    eddie.stenehjem@imail.org
    801-507-7781