Background The first publication of this review in Issue 3, 2005 included studies up to
November 2003. This update adds studies to December 2006 and focuses on application of …

Antimicrobials are among the most important and commonly prescribed drugs in the
management of critically ill patients. Selecting the appropriate antimicrobial at the …

The clinical microbiology laboratory is often a sentinel for the detection of drug resistant
strains of microorganisms. Standardized protocols require continual scrutiny to detect …

Patients hospitalized in ICUs are 5 to 10 times more likely to acquire nosocomial infections
than other hospital patients. The frequency of infections at different anatomic sites and the …

The current epidemic of bacterial resistance is attributed, in part, to the overuse of antibiotics.
Recent studies have documented increases in resistance with over-use of particular …

Controlling antimicrobial costs has preoccupied infectious diseases physicians (IDPs). IDPs
have controlled antimicrobial costs by the use of eight strategies: education, formulary …

Background: Although numerous reports have described interventions designed to influence
antibiotic utilization, to our knowledge none have been evaluated in a randomized study …

As expenditure on health care has increasingly become an area of public debate and
concern, public and private health care decision-makers have called for more rigorous use …

Background Decreasing ineffective or harmful healthcare practices (de-implementation) may
require different approaches than those used to promote uptake of effective practices …

In order to monitor the use of antibiotics, it is essential to have comprehensive data on drug
consumption. The findings of drug utilisation studies can serve to describe the pattern of …