1045. Impact of an Antimicrobial Stewardship Pharmacist on Microbiology Rounds

BACKGROUND: Microbiology rounds is an area for antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASP) to potentially intervene on antimicrobial prescribing in both the inpatient and outpatient settings. The purpose of this study was to describe and evaluate the impact of ASP pharmacist participation in microbiology rounds. METHODS: This was a single-center retrospective descriptive study including inpatient and ambulatory adults ( ≥18 years) with a susceptibility request requiring review during microbiology rounds between October 2018 and 3/2019. During daily microbiology rounds, susceptibility or workup requests were reviewed with the multidisciplinary microbiology team. The ASP pharmacist was called for their clinical expertise in assessing complicated or nonstandard susceptibility requests. Number and types of interventions made by ASP pharmacist were recorded (e.g., approval rate, education, ASP referral, ID consult referral). Additionally, number and types of intervention outcomes (unnecessary susceptibility prevented, optimized susceptibility request, treatment recommendation, improved clinician understanding, etc.) were analyzed. RESULTS: There were 66 susceptibility requests reviewed by an ASP pharmacist from October 2018 to 3/2019, of which 84.8% were inpatient. An ID provider was the requestor for 35% of requests. ASP pharmacists completed chart reviews for 92.4% of patients and contacted the requester/primary team 72.7% of the time. Thirty-three (50%) susceptibility requests were approved and, notably, 65.2% of requests from an ID provider were approved. Intervention rates for education provided, ASP referral, and ID consult referral were 50%, 1%, and 7%, respectively. ASP pharmacists were able to impact multiple intervention outcomes, including preventing unnecessary susceptibility requests (45.5%) and improving clinician understanding (39.4%) (Table 1). CONCLUSION: ASP pharmacists are an important part of the microbiology team and are able to use their clinical expertise to help approve or deny susceptibility requests, make potential recommendations to optimize antimicrobial therapy, and provide education to other healthcare professionals. [Image: see text] DISCLOSURES: All authors: No reported disclosures.