A Multisite Collaborative to Decrease Inappropriate Antibiotics in Urgent Care Centers

The aim of this multisite quality improvement project was to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing practices for 3 target diagnoses in pediatric UC centers by a relative 20% by December 1, 2019.

From 20 UC centers, 157 providers submitted data from 3833 encounters during the intervention cycles. Overall inappropriate antibiotic prescription rates decreased by a relative 53.9%. Inappropriate antibiotic prescribing decreased from 57.0% to 36.6% for AOM, 54.6% to 48.4% for otitis media with effusion, and 66.9% to 11.7% for pharyngitis.

Participating pediatric UC providers decreased inappropriate antibiotic prescriptions from 60.3% to 27.8% using publicly available interventions.