Evaluation of the Western Australia Country Health Service’s Anti-Microbial Stewardship decision support tool

Start Date

25 October 2023

End Date

30 March 2026

Project Participants

Kraken Coding, University of Technology Sydney, WA Country Health Services (WACHS)

Status: Completed

Tags: acute care, clinical decision support, digital health implementation, hospital services, pharmacy, regional rural remote health

Opportunity 

Antimicrobial resistance is a growing threat to patient safety and healthcare sustainability, with inappropriate antimicrobial use a major contributor. In 2023 the Western Australia Country Health Service (WACHS) implemented the WA Antimicrobial Stewardship digital decision support tool known as Antimicrobial Pathways (AMPs) to support improved antimicrobial prescribing across regional and remote healthcare settings. 

Project Objectives  

The project set out to provide evidence on the impact of AMPs on improving prescribing quality, adherence to antimicrobial guidelines and strengthening antimicrobial stewardship practices across the health system.  

This research involved a staged mixed-methods evaluation of AMPs on its impact on a range of outcomes, including:   

  • Uptake of AMPs across different sites 
  • Whether AMPs improved the quality of antimicrobial prescribing 
  • Staff experiences and acceptance of the AMPs tool. 

 

The project demonstrated that the AMPs tool can improve antimicrobial prescribing quality in regional, rural and remote healthcare settings. Services that successfully adopted AMPs achieved significant improvements in prescribing appropriateness and guideline compliance, helping to strengthen antimicrobial stewardship and support more consistent evidence-based prescribing. However, uptake was limited and concentrated in smaller, remote sites. The evaluation also identified key factors for successful digital health implementation, including the importance of pharmacist and senior doctor champions, the need for ongoing training, better workflow and IT integration and embedding the tool into stewardship activities.

The project strengthened understanding of antimicrobial prescribing behaviours and provided evidence on how digital decision support tools can contribute to improving care in regional and remote healthcare environments. Findings identified key organisational factors influencing uptake and sustainability, providing guidance for embedding AMPs into usual clinical practice as well as lessons for future digital health implementations. The project also contributed evidence to inform antimicrobial stewardship policy and service improvement.

Integrity, Excellence,
Teamwork and Authenticity

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