How to Measure the Effectiveness of Incorporating Antibiogram Data at Your Facility

An antibiogram, also referred to as a cumulative susceptibility report, is generated based on information from your facility or a collaboration of multiple facilities (J Am Med Dir Assoc 2018;19:744–747; Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute, “QG: Antibiograms,” Jan. 31, 2014). Clinically, antibiograms are largely used for two main purposes: to help guide clinicians in the selection of empiric antimicrobial choices and to monitor trends in resistance patterns. These reports aggregate the information from individual patients from whom bacterial organisms were isolated and their phenotypic susceptibility to a variety of antimicrobial agents, based on which testing platform was available (Figure, p.7).