eDASON

DASON has been supporting hospitals in a six state area (Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Florida and Georgia) to implement antimicrobial stewardship through on-site consultation.  After receiving many requests from hospitals outside of the five-state area to have access to the DASON educational tools, we decided to expand our educational services.

We are also excited to offer resources and online training opportunities to parties outside of the United States. For more informational on our international offerings, please contact us.

What is eDASON?

eDASON is a series of inexpensive but useful and practical ready-to-use tools that can be used by hospitals anywhere in the country. These educational tools are designed to engage and empower hospital personnel to take an active role in the processes of antimicrobial stewardship and education.

Educational Tools Currently Available in the eDASON Program

Members of eDASON have access to our regularly scheduled live continuing education events.  These programs are offered 6 times a year and provide live continuing education credits for physicians, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and nursing staff.  With an eDASON subscription, all personnel at your facility are provided access to these events at no additional cost.  Each program is offered a minimum of two separate times to facilitate staff participation. 

In addition to live content, eDASON members can also take advantage of our enduring continuing education programs on our training site.

eDASON participants have access to enduring materials for all continuing education programs and live CE programs for an unlimited number of staff at our bimonthly CE events and via our training site.

Antimicrobial Stewardship Initiatives

  • Unlimited Access to DASON Overview of Key Antimicrobial Stewardship Program Elements

Our review of key elements of antimicrobial stewardship outline targeted interventions and programs that can be implemented in facilities of any size and specialty to promote optimal use of antimicrobial agents.  For each program element, a definition, rationale and summary of work to date is provided.  These summaries also outline expected benefits, anticipated challenges and DASON expert recommendations for first steps toward implementing each of these initiatives in the acute care setting.  Additional resources and references, including national and international guideline and consensus states are provided to foster further investigation of these programs.

The following program elements are highlighted in the current eDASON collection:

  1. Formulary Restriction and Pre-Authorization
  2. Prospective Audit with Intervention and Feedback
  3. Order Sets, Treatment Algorithms and Clinical Guidelines
  4. Provider Education
  5. Antimicrobial Formulary Management
  6. Antibiotic Streamlining or De-escalation
  7. Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Dose Optimization
  8. IT & Computer-Assisted Decision Support
  9. Intravenous to Oral Switch Programs
  10. Antimicrobial Cycling
  11. Taking Advantage of Rapid Diagnostic Tests
  12. Offering Advice on Surgical Prophylaxis
  • Unlimited Access to DASON Extended Infusion Piperacillin/tazobactam Toolkit

Piperacillin/tazobactam is one of the most commonly used anti-pseudomonal beta-lactam/beta-lactamase inhibitors in acute care hospitals.  Beta-lactam antibiotics are more effective when the serum free drug concentration is maintained for a longer period of time over the organism’s inhibitory concentration. Thus, maximizing the administration of piperacillin/tazobactam via an extended infusion (EI) can improve treatment outcomes for many patients treated in the community hospital setting. Furthermore, moving to an extended infusion (EI) dosing strategy for piperacillin/tazobactam can result in less drug exposure for the patient and significant medication cost reductions. Implementing this strategy, however, requires attention to detail, planning, and careful education of clinical staff. This DASON Stewardship Initiative provides implementation materials to make EI piperacillin/tazobactam a success in community hospitals.

The DASON EI Piperacillin/tazobactam Implementation Toolkit contains the following items:

  1. Sample EI Piperacillin/tazobactam Policy. The DASON example policy may be adapted and used for local review at Pharmacy and Therapeutic and/or Medical Executive Committees. This document outlines and references the rationale for the initiative, specifics about dosing decisions, patient inclusion/exclusion criteria, process, and a suggested timeline for implementation and outcome reviews.
  2. EI Piperacillin/tazobactam Educational Flyer. The DASON example educational flyer may be adapted for use during implementation and roll out of the initiative.
  3. FAQs for Pharmacists. Two DASON example educational “Frequently Asked Questions” documents targeted to clinical pharmacists are included. The toolkit contains one long and one short version.
  4. FAQ for Nurses. The DASON example educational “Frequently Asked Questions” document targets important information for nursing staff members.
  5. Educational PowerPoint presentation by DASON liaison pharmacist, Dr. Myra Hawkins. This presentation, designed by our liaison pharmacist, may be adapted and used for presentations to the medical or pharmacy staff. Our liaison pharmacists are also available to deliver this material upon request.
  6. Sample EI Piperacillin/tazobactam Medication Use Evaluation (MUE) and Outcome Review. This document outlines our recommendations for data review after implementation of the initiative, in order to track success and impact on patient care and economic outcomes.
  • Unlimited Access to DASON Reducing Surgical Site Infections in Colorectal Surgery Toolkit

The DASON Colorectal Surgery prevention initiative, conducted in partnership with our sister program DICON, targeted colorectal surgeons and specifically focused on practical, simple, yet often overlooked measures that can reduce the risk of surgical site infections following colorectal surgery.  Each surgeon in DICON hospitals received a “packet of  materials” that included 1) an analysis of the risk factors for surgical site infections after colorectal surgery, 2) the rate of postoperative surgical site infections in their patient population compared to that of other colorectal surgeons and 3) well referenced suggestions on how to reduce the risk of postoperative infection in their patients (via using proper antimicrobial prophylaxis, weight-based dosing for obese patients and the value of intraoperative re-dosing of antimicrobial therapy when procedures exceed 3 hours in duration).  In addition, each surgeon received a pocket guide for antimicrobial selection and dosing. 

  • Any new antimicrobial stewardship initiative prepared during the term of the agreement with the hospital acquiring a license from DASON

We plan to prepare two prevention initiatives every 15-18 months. For instance, In the first quarter of 2016 we launched programs related to training pharmacy staff on optimal pharmacokinetic dosing for vancomycin and the aminoglycosides as well as working with the microbiology laboratory to implement cascade reporting of susceptibility results.   These initiatives have already been identified as ideal topics for future toolkits that are under development.