November 12, 2020
The Carolina Antimicrobial Stewardship Program’s 2020 Newsletter features updates on its efforts, including: Expert advice from CASP’s lead pharmacist Lindsay Daniels in Clinicians’ Corner Pediatric stewardship news from UNC Children’s Hospital’s Zach Willis and Bill Wilson How collaboration with Infection Prevention is expected to help keep C. difficile infection rates low Progress in scaling up …
October 5, 2020
As a pediatric resident, Zachary Willis, MD, MPH developed an early interest in antimicrobial stewardship. In his role as director for pediatric antimicrobial stewardship with UNC Medical Center’s Carolina Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (CASP), he was compelled to find ways to optimize antimicrobial use at UNC Children’s Hospital and across the Medical Center. To that end, …
September 30, 2020
An innovative outpatient program de-labels penicillin allergy through penicillin allergy assessments.
September 10, 2020
By Michael Swartwood UNC Medical Center’s OPAT (Outpatient Parenteral Antibiotic Therapy) Program is a multidisciplinary team designed to provide a structured best practice-focused way for patients to receive IV antimicrobials outside of the acute care setting. OPAT allows patients to receive IV antimicrobials outside of the hospital, most commonly while at home. This increases patient …
August 24, 2020
Inpatient rates of Clostridioides difficile (or C. difficile), a common healthcare-associated infection, reached an all-time low at UNC Hospitals earlier this year as COVID-19 moved into North Carolina. In April, only two C. difficile infections (CDI) were reported, and the fiscal year ending June 30 showed a 16% reduction compared to the 2018 baseline. The …
July 30, 2020
By Sarah Krueger, WRAL Durham reporter Chapel Hill, N.C. — From Florida to California, some hospitals report running out of remdesivir, the drug that has shown promise in fighting COVID-19 in the most seriously ill patients. But officials at several area hospitals said Thursday that they have enough of the drug to meet demand.
July 8, 2020
by Judith Retana via CBS17.com Health professionals across the country are experiencing shortages of supplies needed for COVID-19 tests, and it’s leading to a slow down of test results, according to Dr. Melissa Miller. She is the director of the Clinical Microbiology and Molecular Microbiology Laboratories at UNC Health. In a media briefing Wednesday, Miller …
June 25, 2020
Carolina Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (CASP) is carrying out intensive stewardship in the realm of COVID-19. The work is a natural extension of its mission to improve the use of antimicrobials (which include antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, and antiparasitics). In addition to CASP’s daily stewardship to ensure patients receive antimicrobials only when needed, with the right drug, right …
May 27, 2020
The advent of COVID-19 catalyzed a still-evolving and radical shift in healthcare delivery, especially in hospitals that were already on the front lines of caring for the sickest patients. In March, as University of North Carolina Hospitals’ non-critical employees were sent to work from home, Carolina Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (CASP) Medical Director Nikolaos Mavrogiorgos knew …
May 20, 2020
In the first COVID-19 case series of tocilizumab in the United States, CASP’s Jonathan Parr, MD…
March 13, 2020
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHQI) announced its 2020-2021 Improvement Scholars Program this week. The Carolina Antimicrobial Stewardship Program congratulates member Renae Boerneke, PharmD, BCPS, CPP on the selection of her project with co-lead Mildred Kwan, MD, PhD: Reducing the Healthcare Utilization of Broad Spectrum Antibiotics: Implementation of …
January 24, 2020
On January 23, 2019, Dr. David Weber presented at the UNC School of Medicine Grand Rounds on the continuing threat of multidrug resistant pathogens. Dr. Weber’s research interests include hospital-associated (nosocomial) infections especially antibiotic-resistant pathogens, surveillance, disinfection and sterilization, nosocomial pneumonia, hand hygiene, and outbreak investigations. Other research interests include new and emerging infectious diseases, …