The Pros and Cons of Taking Antibiotics To Treat Your UTI

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 20-50% of all antibiotics prescribed in U.S. acute care hospitals are either unnecessary or inappropriate. Many patients who get antibiotics for UTIs in particular actually do not have infections.

Interventions for UTIs focus on avoiding unnecessary urine cultures and treatment of patients who do not have symptoms, and ensuring that patients receive appropriate therapy based on local susceptibilities and for the recommended duration.

When antibiotics are prescribed inappropriately, bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics, diminishing the ability of providers to effectively treat patients with complex health care needs. Antibiotic stewardship programs can improve patient safety and ensure the continued efficacy of antibiotics.

Answers before antibiotics is now a possibility when those microbiology results are available in hours, instead of days. Rapid, accurate, and informed treatment decisions are possible with BacterioScan’s automated rapid diagnostic microbiology platform. Laboratories like PathAdvantage embrace and implementation of this technology into their lab environment is delivering rapid and timely results to physicians to ensure that their patients are taking the right medicine for the right infection at the right time.

The healthcare community knows that antibiotic stewardship is a growing public health concern. BacterioScan and PathAdvantage have come together to do their part to combat misdiagnosis and misuse with UTI.