New Study Shows Improvement Needed in Outpatient Antibiotic Prescribing

Far Too Often, Antibiotics Are Unnecessarily Prescribed for Common Respiratory Conditions in Outpatient Settings, Particularly in Urgent Care
Comparison of Antibiotic Prescribing in Retail Clinics, Urgent Care Centers, Emergency Departments, and Traditional Ambulatory Care Settings in the United States | JAMA Internal Medicine | JAMA Network

A new study in The Journal of the American Medical Association: Internal Medicine found that healthcare professionals in outpatient settings often unnecessarily prescribed antibiotics for respiratory illnesses like the common cold and bronchitis, with prescribers in urgent care centers doing so nearly 46% of the time.

Other outpatient settings with high rates of unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions for these conditions include emergency departments (in 25% of visits), medical offices (in 17% of visits), and retail health clinics (in 14% of visits). Urgent care centers also had the highest percent of all visits that led to an antibiotic prescription.

Because this new study includes new data about unnecessary antibiotic prescribing in urgent care centers and retail health clinics, unnecessary antibiotic prescribing nationally in all outpatient settings may be higher than the estimated 30% reported in a 2016 study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Efforts to improve antibiotic use could help reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions in all outpatient settings, and are particularly important in urgent care centers. When antibiotics aren’t needed, they won’t help patients and the side effects could still hurt patients. Improving the way healthcare professionals prescribe antibiotics, and the way patients take antibiotics, helps keep us healthy now, helps fight antibiotic resistance, and ensures that life-saving antibiotics will be available for future generations.

To learn more about antibiotic prescribing and use, visit www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use.

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