Amid increasing concern over antibiotic resistance, a new analysis found that nearly 56% of the prescriptions written in hospitals in 2015 for these treatments were inappropriate, underscoring the need to provide added guidance to physicians and other health care providers.
The mistakes varied, but included instances where the wrong antibiotic was prescribed, an antibiotic was prescribed for an unnecessarily long period of time, or there was a lack of evidence to indicate a patient had an infection, according to the analysis, which was published in JAMA Network Open and authored by dozens of public health officials around the U.S.
Of antibiotic prescriptions were written for community-acquired pneumonia and urinary tract infections — two of the most widely seen infections in hospitals — were inappropriate in 79% and 77% of instances, respectively. Among the most commonly used antibiotics, 46% of all fluoroquinolone prescriptions and 27% of all vancomycin prescriptions were inappropriate.
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