# Requiring durations of therapy at the time of antibiotic order entry reduces antibiotic use

## TL;DR

Requiring clinicians to set antibiotic stop dates at the time of ordering reduced overall antibiotic use in patients.

## Contribution

This study shows that mandating stop dates during antibiotic order entry reduces antibiotic use.

## Key findings

- Requiring stop dates decreased DOT/1000 patient days for empiric antibiotic orders.
- The reduction in antibiotic use was statistically significant.
- The intervention led to a decrease of 34.9 DOT/1000 patient days.

## Abstract

The impact of required durations of therapy for antibiotic orders at the time of order entry has not been reported. Requiring ordering clinicians to enter stop dates at the time of antibiotic order entry decreased DOT/1000 patient days for orders with empiric indication from 154 to 119 (–34.9 (–55.7 to –14)).