Getting Started
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Division of Oral Health defines antibiotic stewardship as “the effort to measure antibiotic prescribing; to improve antibiotic prescribing by clinicians and use by patients so that antibiotics are only prescribed and used when needed; to minimize misdiagnoses or delayed diagnoses leading to underuse of antibiotics; and to ensure that the right drug, dose, and duration are selected when an antibiotic is needed."
Patients who are unnecessarily exposed to antibiotics are placed at risk of adverse events with no benefit. Antimicrobial stewardship practices and programs can help protect patients from these adverse events.
The resources below are designed to assist healthcare professionals working in the dental setting with implementing a program.
Implementation Guidance
- CDC's Core Elements of Outpatient Antibiotic Stewardship
- Provides guidance on creating a new stewardship program
- ADA Antibiotic Stewardship Guidance
- Discusses why stewardship is important to dentists and dental settings
- Michigan Antibiotic Resistance Reduction Coalition (MARR)'s Antibiotic Stewardship Toolkit for the Dental Office
- Contains multiple resources to assist dental offices with implementing antibiotic stewardship
Checklists
Posters
- WA DOH Provider Commitment to Stewardship Posters:
- MARR's Dental Provider Commitment Poster
- To post in patient care areas
Action
- MARR’s Delayed Prescribing Notepad
- To use as a patient-facing resource to support the recommendations from the 2019 ADA guidelines
- MARR’s Penicillin Allergy Assessment Tool (PAAT)
- To support the dental office in referring appropriate patients for penicillin allergy assessment
Education and Clinical Guidance
Specialized Training Opportunities
- 2023 OSAP Antibiotic Stewardship Summit
- On-demand recordings
- Provides up to 4 hours of content worth ADA CERP CE credits through January 31st, 2026
National Clinical Guidelines
- ADA Clinical Practice Guideline on Antibiotic Use for the Urgent Management of Pupal-and Periapical-Related Dental Pain and Intraoral Swelling
- Assists clinicians in determining the appropriate use of systemic antibiotics for these conditions
- ADA Antibiotic Prophylaxis Prior to Dental Procedures
- Gives evidence-based recommendations for populations who may not benefit from antibiotic prophylaxis
- CDC’s Dentists: Be Antibiotics Aware – Treating Patients with Dental Pain and Swelling Fact Sheet
- Contains visual guidance for situations in which antibiotics are not necessary
Provider Education
- JADA Editorial: Antibiotics: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
- Discusses antibiotics and the outcomes and consequences associated with their use
- ADA’s Council on Scientific Affairs: Combating Antibiotic Resistance
- Provides dental professionals with current information on antibiotic resistance and related considerations about the clinical use of antibiotics
- WA DOH’s Penicillin Allergy Delabeling Newsletter Article
- A one-pager that contains statistics showing the importance of de-labeling
Patient Education
Data
CDC’s Antibiotic Resistance and Patient Safety Portal (ARSP)
- Allows facilities to explore and visualize national and state-specific data relevant to both outpatient and inpatient antibiotic stewardship programs