Implementation of Antimicrobial Stewardship Interventions in Children's Hospitals using Benchmarking

To improve the use of antimicrobials for hospitalized children by utilizing benchmarking as an audit-and-feedback strategy. This will be accomplished through the following 2 objectives:

1.To establish a sustainable, pediatric collaborative devoted to best practices for antimicrobial stewardship through 1) the generation and refinement of standardized metrics for benchmarking antimicrobial use, 2) data sharing, and 3) the development of common clinical guidelines for antimicrobial use.
2.To evaluate the impact of using benchmarking data for guiding stewardship activities to improve antimicrobial use for hospitalized children. Benchmarking data will be developed, shared and then integrated into action plans for targeted stewardship interventions within 7 freestanding children's hospitals in the United States.