Northwestern Medicine Antimicrobial Stewardship

Welcome to Northwestern Medicine Antimicrobial Stewardship

Our Mission

To ensure that our patients receive the safest and most effective antimicrobial therapy for their infection while preserving and protecting the effectiveness of these endangered resources for future patients.

New
CDC Global Antimicrobial Resistance Challenge

"Northwestern Medicine, an integrated academic health system in the Chicago area with 4,000 physicians and 30,000 employees caring for over 1.1 million patients, is committed to improving antibiotic use to ensure that these important medications remain effective treatment options. The Antimicrobial Stewardship Quality Committee commits to using local and CDC data to reduce unnecessary antibiotic use across their system. They also commit to increased use of penicillin allergy testing to remove misdiagnoses and decrease the use of broader-spectrum antibiotics. Utilizing both of these interventions will be aimed at reducing overly broad spectrum antibiotic use and emphasize their strong commitment to better patient care and combating antibiotic resistance."

See "Northwestern Medicine" on the CDC AMR Challenge Website

Antibiotic Awareness Week
November 12-16

Join us in celebrating Antibiotic Awareness Week!

Our NM Antimicrobial Stewardship Team works continuously to support our clinicians in their decision to prescribe antibiotic orders. Please reach out to your NM hospital's antibiotic stewardship team for resources and clinical decision support. Visit our team page here.

Northwestern Medicine's Antimicrobial Resources

CDC reports over 2 million illnesses and 23,000 deaths annually from infections that are resistant to antibiotics
Antibiotic resistance adds $20 billion in excess direct health care costs, $35 billion societal costs for lost productivity
The use of antibiotics is the single most important factor leading to resistance
Nearly 50% of all antibiotics ordered in hospitals are not needed or inappropriate prescribed
At least 30% of antibiotics in U.S. outpatient settings are prescribed unnecessarily
Fighting antibiotic resistance is a public health and national security priority