New, practical metrics to improve how hospitals prescribe antibiotics
Official title: Development, Validation and Real-World Application of Comprehensive Metrics to Improve Hospitals' Antibiotic Prescribing
Funded at Iowa City VA Medical Center · NIH-11373816 · Data updated 2026-11-12
Aims to develop and test new metrics that better measure how well hospitals use antibiotics, with the goal of improving patient safety and reducing resistance.
Quick facts
| Grant type | NIH-funded research |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Iowa City VA Medical Center NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Iowa City, United States) |
| Project start | July 1, 2023 |
| Project end | September 30, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| NIH project number | 5I01HX003595-04 |
| Project ID | NIH-11373816 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Hospitals and patients in settings where antimicrobial stewardship programs are active, especially in VA and similar hospital systems.
✕Less likely to help
Direct patient benefit may be limited for individuals not involved in hospital care or without access to improved stewardship practices.
What this research studies
This grant focuses on creating and validating metrics that go beyond current tools to measure how antibiotics are prescribed in hospitals. It plans to develop risk-standardized days of therapy, a spectrum coverage score, and a risk-standardized version of the spectrum score, then test their validity. The work uses hospital data to compare these metrics against the existing SAAR measure, aiming to make stewardship programs more accurate and meaningful. If successful, these metrics could help hospitals target improvements in antimicrobial use and patient outcomes.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, hospitals could adopt clearer, fairer metrics that lead to safer antibiotic prescribing and slower resistance.
How similar studies have gone: Previous work shows SAAR-based approaches have limitations; this project seeks to overcome them with new, validated metrics.
Where this research is happening
-
Iowa City VA Medical Center
Iowa City, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Livorsi, Daniel — Iowa City VA Medical Center
- Study coordinator: Livorsi, Daniel
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.