Get Smart About Antibiotics Week: Antibiotic Use in Nursing Homes

The content of this blog has been reposted with permission from Laurie Blanchard at InfoLTC blog, at http://infoltc.blogspot.com/. Ms. Blanchard is the librarian at the Misericordia Health Centre Library, University of Manitoba Health Sciences Libraries in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Prior to working at the Misericordia Health Centre, Laurie worked at the J.W. Crane Memorial Library, Deer Lodge Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba for 20 years.  She authors the InfoLTC blog for which she won a Manitoba Library Association's Innovation Award and the People’s Choice Award for Best Poster at the CHLA/ABSC 2009 Conference in Winnipeg. Ms. Blanchard is a former editor of the Bibliotheca Medica Canadiana (now the Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association (CHLA) , and currently serves on the board of the CHLA. Ms. Blanchard's views are solely her own and do not necessarily represent the views of Clinical Geriatrics, or of HMP Communications, LLC.

November 12-18, 2012 has been designated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as Get Smart About Antibiotics Week, highlighting the work of the CDC, state and local health departments, and non-profit and for-profit partners to educate people about the importance of appropriate antibiotic use in both community and healthcare settings.

The Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work and Get Smart for Healthcare programs are designed to educate consumers and healthcare providers about appropriate use of antibiotics. Antibiotic Use in Nursing Homes is a two-page factsheet (also available in PDF on the webpage), which provides facts on antibiotic use; the scope of the problem in nursing homes; and provides suggestions for what nursing homes can do to avoid misusing antibiotics.