Impact of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program implementation on the consumption of teicoplanin: use of the Defined Daily Dose as a measuring tool

Abstract

Currently, antimicrobial resistance is one of the biggest threats to public health. Strategies to promote prudent antibiotic use should be proposed and surveillance tools on the use of these drugs should be used. This study aims to compare the consumption of teicoplanin in the period from January 2017 to December 2019 using Defined Daily Dose (DDD), in order to verify the impact of consumption after the implementation of an Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (ASP) in a tertiary hospital in Santos’s city, Brazil. This is a descriptive, retrospective, and quantitative study that included all medical prescriptions of teicoplanin for inpatients during the period proposed. The ASP was implemented into the hospital in March 2018. The consumption of teicoplanin was calculated by DDD, expressed in DDD/1000 patient-days, comparing the consumption before and after the implementation of the ASP. Our findings showed that the DDD of teicoplanin reduced of 89.5 (29.9%) in the year of 2018, following with a decrease of 29.1 (13.9%) in the year of 2019. Therefore, there was a reduction in the DDD of teicoplanin of 118.6 (39.6%) in two years, generating cost-savings of 14,305.53 Brazilian real, since each 400 mg vial of teicoplanin cost 48.25 Brazilian real (120.62/g of teicoplanin). In conclusion, easy intervention that do not depend on large financial resources are effective to reduce the consumption of antimicrobials and health expenditures, indirectly improving the patient safety and the quality service.