ABSTRACT
Although the fees for the implementation of antimicrobial stewardship (AS addition) were newly established in the 2018 revision of medical fees, more detailed activities and issues of pharmacists at facilities calculating AS addition have not been clarified so far. Therefore, to understand the current status of AS activities and problems, we conducted a questionnaire survey of facilities that calculate the additional fee for infection prevention measures 1 and investigated whether there are differences in AS activities between facilities where pharmacists are full-time employees and facilities where non-pharmacists are full-time employees. The results showed that the number of antimicrobial agents used by full-time pharmacists was larger than that by non-pharmacists. In addition, the frequency of AS was lower for non-full-time workers than for full-time workers, with most full-time workers performing AS every day, while non-full-time workers performing AS two to three days a week. In addition, non-full-time workers lacked human resources and work time, and did not have sufficient work materials. The survey revealed that AS activities’ current status and problems differ between full-time and non-full-time employees.