Impact of an Infectious Disease Specialist-Led Postprescription Carbapenem Intervention on Prescribing Behavior in a Japanese Tertiary Hospital: a Before-After Study

Background: There are a few infectious disease (ID) specialists in Japan. A solution to promote the implementation of antimicrobial stewardship activities under these resource-limited settings is required.Methods: We compared carbapenem consumption between a 24-month baseline and 12-month intervention periods. During the intervention period, an ID specialist provided daily advises through a chart review and ID consultation service to prescribers against all prolonged carbapenem use (≥ 14 days). Additionally, we send an aggregated table containing the weekly point prevalence amount of each departmental carbapenem use for 7–13 and ≥ 14 days through e-mail to all doctors.Results: Among the 1,241 carbapenem courses during the intervention period, the ID specialist provided a total of 96 instances of feedback regarding carbapenem use for ≥ 14 days, and the feedback acceptance rate was 76%. After the initiation of the intervention, the trend in monthly carbapenem consumption changed (coefficient: -0.62; 95% CI: -1.15 to -0.087, p = 0.024), and its consumption decreased (coefficient: -0.098; 95% CI: -0.16 to -0.039, p = 0.002) without an increase in the consumption of broad-spectrum antimicrobials or in-hospital mortality. Interestingly, the monthly number of carbapenem courses, but not the duration of carbapenem use, significantly decreased (coefficient: -3.02; 95% CI: -4.63 to -1.42, p = 0.001). The carbapenem-related annual estimated savings after the intervention was $83,745, with a 22% cost reduction.Conclusions: Our ID specialist-led daily intervention with weekly feedback regarding long-term carbapenem use was effective in reducing antimicrobial consumption. Such feedback may be useful in changing the prescribing behavior and promoting appropriate antimicrobial usage even in resource-limited settings.