Barriers and Enablers for Sustaining Nurse-Led Use of Clinical Decision Support Tools for Antibiotic Stewardship: Qualitative Study

TL;DR

This study explores what helps or hinders nurses from using a digital tool to guide antibiotic prescribing in clinics, focusing on long-term use beyond a trial.

Contribution

The study provides new insights into nurse-specific barriers and enablers for sustaining clinical decision support tools in antibiotic stewardship.

Findings

Staffing stability and clinic resources are critical for tool sustainability.

Nurse readiness and clinic culture influence CDS tool adoption.

Ongoing training and workflow-specific solutions are needed for long-term use.

Abstract

Clinical decision support (CDS) tools embedded in electronic health records in the form of integrated clinical prediction rules provide a potentially effective intervention to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for acute respiratory infections. However, their effectiveness has been limited by workflow barriers and low adoption by health care providers. Nurses are well positioned to implement evidence-based protocols using CDS tools. In a multicenter randomized controlled trial, a nurse-led implementation strategy for acute respiratory infection integrated clinical prediction rules was evaluated for use in primary care and urgent care settings.

This study aimed to examine nurse and nurse leader perspectives on the sustainability of an electronic health record–integrated CDS tool for antibiotic stewardship and explored factors influencing its potential long-term integration into ambulatory nursing practice beyond the clinical trial.

We interviewed 22 nurses and nurse leaders from 37 clinics across 3 academic medical centers that participated in the clinical trial. Two semistructured interview guides, one for nurses and one for nursing leadership, were developed to understand the barriers and facilitators to implementing a decision aid tool for nurses and to elicit challenges specific to nursing interactions with the CDS tool. Interviews were recorded and transcribed. Using thematic content analysis and iterative coding, our team collaboratively identified emerging themes related to sustainability and refined the results with consensus.

Five themes emerged: (1) importance of staffing stability and capacity, (2) impact of dedicated clinic resource availability, (3) variable nurse readiness with CDS-guided clinical care, (4) influence of openness to change and a nurse-supportive clinic culture, and (5) ongoing need for training and support. Specific recommendations for future actions were also noted.

Our findings revealed specific barriers and facilitators to the sustainability of a CDS tool from the nursing perspective that can inform further implementation of nurse-led delegation protocols in the ambulatory setting. Future solutions should consider mapping physical workflows, scheduling specific to nurse visits, continuing education, and treating cough and sore throat as 2 distinct processes.