BWFH pharmacist takes on new role 

Raul Santiago, PharmD, BCPS, is in a new role as BWFH’s Clinical Pharmacy Specialist in Infectious Diseases.  Santiago will be working closely with BWFH’s infectious diseases team to support the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program, which seeks to implement coordinated interventions to improve patient outcomes by promoting appropriate use of antibiotics, including the selection of optimal drug regimens, dosing, duration of therapy and route of administration.

“With antimicrobial resistance on the rise around the world, the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program is more important than ever to ensure the efficacy of available antimicrobials,” says Santiago.

Currently, the ASP team works together to monitor and improve the use of antibiotics at BWFH through:

• Formulary restriction of certain antimicrobial agents and the ID approval process
• Pharmacist-driven IV to oral medication conversion
• Daily review of active antimicrobial orders, ID consult patients, and active difficile cases to assess for appropriateness with recommendations/feedback communicated to care teams
• Long term monitoring of antibiotic use and resistance data to identify opportunities for improvement
• Development of policies, protocols, and guidelines to aid in optimal antimicrobial use

The Infectious Diseases pharmacist is available as a resource to all disciplines in the hospital and can be reached by paging 61610.