Antibiotic Use

Tracking and reporting antibiotic use is critical to identify opportunities for improvement, and to inform and assess antibiotic stewardship interventions.

Inpatient Antibiotic Use: All SAAR Agent Categories: These data reflect antibiotic use from inpatient facilities enrolled in the National Healthcare Safety Network's (NHSN) Patient Safety Component Antimicrobial Use and Resistance (AUR) Antimicrobial Use (AU) Option. Standardized Antimicrobial Administration Ratios (SAARs) are used to describe antimicrobial use by comparing the number of observed antimicrobial days to the number of predicted antimicrobial days.

SAARs for adult and pediatric locations were previously based on 2017 national data, and neonatal locations on 2018 national data. National data from 2023 have been analyzed to create new risk models that are used for these SAAR calculations. For additional information on SAARs and details on the new risk models, please see our NHSN's Guide to the SAAR.

Note: The 2021-2023 SAAR figures based on the 2017 and 2018 baselines will remain available in the Antimicrobial Resistance and Patient Safety Portal, however, no additional data will be populated on that page. As a reminder, we do not recommend comparing SAARs generated using different baselines, i.e., 2017, 2018, and 2023 baselines, because they include different baseline populations, risk adjustments, and SAAR agent categories.

• →Inpatient Antibiotic Use: All SAAR Agent Categories (2017/2018 Baseline)
• →Inpatient Antibiotic Use: All SAAR Agent Categories (2023 Baseline)

Outpatient Antibiotic Use: These data represent outpatient oral antibiotic prescriptions. The first data source is retail pharmacy prescriptions dispensed to humans. The second data source is prescription drugs provided to Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in Part D (prescription drug coverage).