Utilisation of Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) Electronic Interventions (i-Vents) as a metric of pharmacy AMS at Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) NHS Foundation Trust

Background: The aim of the project was to identify the contribution clinical pharmacists make to antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) at CUH. The EPIC e-hospital system in place allows pharmacists to record interventions (i-Vents) electronically; these can be used as a metric of pharmacist AMS.

Method:A bespoke electronic report of all AMS i-Vents which occurred in April 2018 was generated using EPIC.Each i-Vent was categorised by type, clinical speciality, grade of pharmacist making the i-Vent and whether the i-Vent was following on from a previous one. The antimicrobials(s) mentioned in each i-Vent were also recorded.

Results:During April 2018 554 pharmacist i-Vents were recorded. I-Vent types included therapeutic drug monitoring (31%), dose optimisation (22%), course length optimisation (12%), interaction and contraindication management (2%) and patient counselling (0.2%). AMS i-Vents were recorded for patients under the care of 42 clinical specialties including neonatology (12%), diabetes and endocrinology (11%) and respiratory (8%). I-vent numbers increased with seniority of pharmacist with band 8 pharmacists making the most interventions (44%) and band 6 pharmacists making the fewest (16%). There were 645 separate references to a total of 53 individual antimicrobial agents. The top three drugs mentioned in i-Vents were vancomycin (30%), gentamicin (12%), and ciprofloxacin (8%). Follow-up i-Vents constituted 111 (20%) of all recorded i-Vents.

Conclusion:Our findings demonstrate that pharmacists contribute significantly to AMS at CUH, especially on therapeutic drug monitoring and dose-optimisation issues.We suggest that AMS i-Vents are a reliable metric for monitoring AMS pharmacist activities, related directly to patient care.