Antimicrobial stewardship is an important and evolving aspect of patient care and safety programs in hospitals around the world. A team of involved specialists, including infectious diseases physicians, clinical microbiologists, hospital epidemiologists and others, is needed to address this complex problem. In United States a clinical pharmacist has been also claimed to collaborate in this kind of program, but in Latin America and other limited-resources areas, lack of appropiate personnel are part of the limitations to implementation. Two strategies, not to be exclusively applied, are proposed. Prospective audit with intervention and feedback is an option, while the use of formulary restriction and pre-authorization might be also used. The first strategy might be time consuming and requires a series of tools to succed. The implementation of the program requires administrative and economic support and the use of education, development of guidelines, antimicrobial order forms, de-escalation therapy (which requires an active participation of the microbiology laboratory), dose optimization, and switch to oral therapy. Effective use of antimicrobials but also prevention of resistance are the goals to achive in the individualised care of patients and new targets are being currently defined (pharmacodynamic objectives). Up to the moment more research is required to find the best ways to achieve these goals. Abstracts for SupplementInternational Journal of Infectious DiseasesVol. 14Preview Full-Text PDF Open Archive