Using Behavioral Science to Reduce Inappropriate Antibiotic Use in Acute Care Settings

Stepped wedge behavioral intervention clinical trial looking at the impact of an antibiotic stewardship intervention on provider prescribing behavior for acute respiratory infections (ARIs), where the intervention is administered at the emergency department or urgent care center site level, using a cluster randomization process. Thus, every site and every provider are eligible to be exposed to the stewardship intervention, the cluster randomized stepped wedge process simply randomizes when they will be exposed. The overall study hypothesis is that providers will prescribe fewer unnecessary antibiotics to patients with ARIs after the intervention.