Indicators of the hospital use of antimicrobial agents based on consumption

Objective: To identify indicators of hospital use of antimicrobials from the benchmark analysis of consumption data between hospitals at the same level through the collective judgement of a group of experts. Method: A committee formed by members of the Spanish Societies of Hospital Pharmacy and Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology prepared a proposal of indicators which was submitted to consensus by a panel of 21 experts on infectious diseases, microbiology and antimicrobial therapy, through a modified Delphi method. The panel underwent two rounds of scores by e-mail. Participants assigned a score from 1 (completely disagree) to 9 (completely agree) to the relevance of each indicator in four dimensions: scientific evidence, efficacy and safety, ecological impact and cost. Scores were processed according to the RAND- UCLA method. An indicator was considered to be relevant if at least one dimension other than cost obtained a median score equal to or higher than 7 without disagreement among the panel. Results: The committee submitted an initial proposal of 14 indicators. After the first round of panel scores, one indicator was ruled out and two were modified for moving on to the second round. Finally, 13 indicators were considered relevant. Conclusions: Determining indicators of the hospital use of antimicrobial agents based on consumption can allow the antimicrobial stewardship programs to detect any potential problems with the use of antimicrobial agents, and to help guide their efforts in order to implement actions of improvement, as well as to assess the impact of the measures implemented.