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Practice Gap
Antibiotics are frequently prescribed in primary care for durations longer than supported by current evidence and guideline recommendations. Despite growing data demonstrating that shorter courses are equally effective for many common outpatient infections, prolonged antibiotic use remains common, contributing to antimicrobial resistance, adverse drug events, and avoidable healthcare costs.
Educational Need
Several factors contribute to suboptimal antibiotic duration in primary care, including:
- Limited awareness of updated evidence and guideline recommendations supporting shorter treatment durations
- Difficulty applying population-level guidance to individual patients with comorbidities or persistent symptoms
- Behavioral drivers such as fear of undertreatment or clinical failure
- Patient expectations for antibiotics or longer courses of therapy
- System-level barriers, including default prescribing durations and lack of structured reassessment
Target Audience
This activity is designed for primary care physicians and specialists, including family medicine and general internal medicine clinicians involved in outpatient antibiotic prescribing. Other healthcare professionals engaged in antimicrobial stewardship may also benefit.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this activity, learners will be able to:
- Apply principles of antibiotic stewardship to outpatient prescribing decisions and identify the physician’s role in reducing antimicrobial resistance.
- Interpret audit & feedback data and explain how feedback mechanisms can influence physician prescribing behavior, including antibiotic selection and duration.
- Implement evidence-based antibiotic prescribing strategies and use patient-centered communication techniques to support appropriate antibiotic use.
- Navigate your MD Snapshot Report and complete a PPIP cycle using your individual antibiotic prescribing data.
Educational Format and Design
This CME activity will use a multimodal educational design intended to support changes in clinician competence and performance:
- Vodcasts: Short, focused, evidence-based video modules addressing optimal antibiotic duration and stewardship principles in primary care.
- Interactive Quizzes: Embedded knowledge and application questions to reinforce learning and assess competence.
- Audit-and-Feedback Session: Review of individual or aggregate prescribing data, with guided reflection to identify opportunities for improvement and support sustained practice change.
This format is designed to move beyond knowledge acquisition toward measurable changes in prescribing behavior.