Journal of Infectious Diseases & Therapy
Open Access

Short Communication

Clostridium difficile Infection Rates Reduced at a Health Care System after Restriction of Respiratory Fluoroquinolones

Athena LV Hobbs^1* and Katherine M Shea²

¹Infectious Diseases Clinical Pharmacy Specialist, Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis, Memphis, TN 38120, USA

²Clinical Director-Infectious Diseases, Cardinal Health, Innovative Delivery Solutions, USA

*Corresponding Author:

Athena LV Hobbs
Infectious Diseases Clinical Pharmacy Specialist
Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis, Memphis, TN 38120, USA
Tel: 901-226-4756
E-mail: Athena.hobbs@bmhcc.org

Received date: July 18, 2017; Accepted date: August 02, 2017; Published date: August 07, 2017

Citation: Hobbs ALV, Shea KM (2017) Clostridium difficile Infection Rates Reduced at a Health Care System after Restriction of Respiratory Fluoroquinolones. J Infect Dis Ther 5:328. doi: 10.4172/2332-0877.1000328

Copyright: © 2017 Hobbs ALV, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Fluoroquinolones are one of the most commonly prescribed antibiotic classes in the United States and up to 81% of inpatient utilization has been deemed inappropriate. Our study, recently published in Antimicrobial Agents of Chemotherapy, aimed to determine the impact of respiratory fluoroquinolone education and restriction on utilization, appropriateness of quinolone-based therapy, and CDI rates within a health care system. Both phases of implementation were successful at significantly reducing respiratory fluoroquinolone utilization as well as CDI rates. Utilization was reduced by 48% after clinician education and 88% following implementation of restriction criteria. Mean monthly CDI cases also decreased by approximately 50% from pre-intervention to post-restriction.

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