Benchmarking Program

The Benchmarking Program, established in 1993, is a research effort focusing on examining relationships between antibiotic usage, antimicrobial management activities, and resistance patterns among hospitals of various types and size across the US. The membership of this program includes hospital pharmacy directors and clinical coordinators, and other health care practitioners with an interest in antibiotic utilization. Members collect and annually submit pharmacy expenditure and practice data, and inpatient antibiograms. In return, each member receives an annual report comparing their institution's patterns to those of their peer groups. In addition to making a valuable research contribution, program participation offers hospitals the ability to identify potential areas of antibiotic misuse and targets for education programs or DUE efforts.

National Nosocomial Resistance Surveillance Group (NNRSG)

The NNRSG is a consortium of clinical pharmacists, ID specialists, and medical microbiologists who are able to provide hospital-, unit-, and patient-specific information. Members participate in epidemiologic studies which evaluate factors predictive of, as well as the outcome of, resistant bacterial infections. Such studies permit the evaluation of the relationship between the development of bacterial resistance and antimicrobial utilization at the patient level.