Nurses are usually non-prescribers, so that means that anti-infective stewardship is the domain of the prescribing doctors and pharmacists, right? Wrong! Nurses have an enormous and enormously under-estimated role in anti-infective stewardship!
A really handy CID review outlines the nurses’ role in stewardship, encompassing initiation, education, administration, monitoring, and other key functions. Think about it – who has the most time with a patient? A doctor who visits them occasionally to review them, or a nurse who cares for them daily? So, this relationship will come into its own when describing why antibiotics are needed, being changed, being stopped and so on.
So, prescribers and non-prescribers alike need to work together to achieve meaningful anti-infective stewardship.
Image: Flickr.
