Effective leadership underpins all successful change strategies in healthcare. In the pursuit to lessen antibiotic resistance, healthcare leadership plays an important role. (Akinboyo & Gerber, 2020) reports that leadership commitment to antibiotic stewardship informs the success of all stewardship programs within care organizations. Healthcare leadership, in this regard, plays a role in inspiring their subjects to embrace aspects of antibiotic stewardship. They also inform them of the core elements of antibiotic stewardship, including but not limited to accountability, reporting, tracking, and education. Healthcare leadership also guides healthcare changes that ensure better accountability of caregivers towards embracing best practices in prescribing antibiotic medications.
Healthcare collaborations are integral to antibiotic stewardship. Collaborative stewardship highlights the collective responsibilities of caregivers in implementing measures to lower the likelihood of antibiotic resistance. Collaborative and communication strategies such as clarity in communication, transparency, respect among team members, information sharing, role interdependence, and cooperation may maximize the benefits of this team’s approach to stewardship (Palavecino et al., 2020). Thus, all caregivers involved in antibiotic handling should know these strategies.
Healthcare leadership can utilize several change management strategies to oversee meaningful changes that promote antibiotic stewardship. Effective communication, the creation of a roadmap for any intended change processes, the selection of a change model to be utilized, and the invitation of organizational input on various change processes may considerably enhance the adoption of change processes within an organization. Healthcare leaders should thus be well conversant with these change strategies to ensure the successful implementation of various change processes.
Antibiotic resistance remains a global health concern. It is one of the impediments to the pursuit of healthy communities. Healthcare providers play a role in lessening the hazardous effects of this emerging threat to communities. Through antibiotic stewardship, they can stand to be counted in the fight against antibiotic resistance. Federal and state involvement in this fight has also been evident in policies that promote antibiotic stewardship. A concerted effort from caregivers, communities, and governments is necessary to enhance antibiotic stewardship programs’ success.
Akinboyo, I. C., & Gerber, J. S. (2020). Principles, policy, and practice of antibiotic stewardship. Seminars in Perinatology, 44(8), 151324. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.semperi.2020.151324
Dadgostar, P. (2019). Antimicrobial resistance: Implications and costs. Infection and Drug Resistance, Volume 12, 3903–3910. https://doi.org/10.2147/idr.s234610
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