California strengthens antimicrobial stewardship mandate for hospitals.

Abstract

A California law that goes into effect this summer strengthens the state’s previous requirement for acute care hospitals to practice antimicrobial stewardship. Starting July 1, acute care hospitals in California must put into effect antimicrobial stewardship programs that follow federal and professional society guidelines and include a process to evaluate the judicious use of antimicrobials. The law specifies that the stewardship teams must be multidisciplinary and include “at least one physician or pharmacist” who has expertise and training in antimicrobial stewardship. California is the only state that has enacted legislation mandating antimicrobial stewardship for hospitals. The law, which was passed last September, supplements legislation from 2006 that mandates stewardship programs for California’s acute care hospitals and requires the state health department to assess them for compliance. The older law required hospitals to “develop a process for evaluating the judicious use of antibiotics” but didn’t define the process. As a result, said Olga DeTorres, infectious diseases (ID) clinical pharmacist at Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, “hospital administrators have been very creative in what they define as antibiotic stewardship.”