The Mini-Lab: The next step towards integrated antimicrobial resistance surveillance from a global health perspective

Discussion: This is the first multi-hospital study in South Africa that has demonstrated a positive clinical AMS outcome because of the implementation of a digitally enabled intervention.Whilst there is evidence to support the impact of automatic stop orders and or mandatory end dates for antimicrobial prescriptions implemented in various hospital systems globally, the uniqueness of this intervention is that an 'ending soon' notification was triggered prior to the prescribed end date with an option to continue or stop treatment.This provided clinicians an opportunity to reevaluate the need for continuation of antibiotic therapy.This multidisciplinary collaborative initiative is the first time that prescribers were required to take ownership of the duration of antibiotic therapy at scale, enabled by the EMR platform, to become key-role players in AMS review, which resulted in further reducing overall antibiotic consumption.Conclusion: Unnecessary extended antimicrobial duration is a 'low hanging fruit' high impact AMS intervention.This digital intervention made a significant impact on reducing antibiotic consumption across multiple private hospitals.Analysis to ascertain any unintended consequences as a result of this intervention on patient outcomes is underway.