An economic evaluation of antimicrobial stewardship programs in metropolitan Australian hospitals

This thesis provides the first economic evaluation of Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) interventions in two Metropolitan Australian Hospitals. AMS interventions are cost-saving from a hospital perspective and are cost-effective particularly if teamed with rapid diagnostics in the microbiology laboratory. The uncertainty in the mortality estimates does not allow for a high level of confidence in the cost-effectiveness decision for policy makers. While mortality is a useful metric, morbidity associated with bloodstream infections due to inappropriate prescribing needs to be collected over a longer period of time to capture the true benefits of AMS interventions