Activities
and Events
Some ideas from the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health
Care (the Commission) for activities and events for your health service
organisation during Antibiotic Awareness Week (AAW).
Display posters
Download the AAW 2015 posters from the Commission’s AAW webpage and display them around your health
service organisation, in your:

lifts, stairwells and foyer

medication rooms, pharmacy department and wards

outpatient clinic waiting areas and outpatient pharmacy

meeting rooms and executive unit.
Participate in the National Antimicrobial Prescribing Survey
The National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship is being supported by the Commission to coordinate the
National Antimicrobial Prescribing Survey (NAPS) again in 2015. The data collection period commenced in
September 2015. Healthcare services are advised to conduct the survey early so results will be available during
AAW to enable local feedback and discussion. The NAPS team will also provide additional clinical support for
facilities without infectious diseases specialists or antimicrobial pharmacists. If you would like to participate or
need help planning the survey, please contact the NAPS team at support@naps.org.au or visit the NAPS web
site www.naps.org.au The Commission is also supporting the NAPS to improve participation rates and reporting
Use the AAW logo
Use the AAW logo in your email signature block, on meeting minutes, and in other correspondence. In 2014,
some health service organisations printed the logo onto stickers and placed these on coffee cups during the
week, posting photographs on social media.
Promote AAW on your intranet and screens
Ask your web team to place the AAW e-banner on your intranet page, or include an article on AAW on your staff
intranet homepage, linking through to more details about the week and your planned activities. You could ask
your IT Department to load the AAW screensaver on to all computers.
Activities
and Events
T-shirt and resources pack
The Commission has a limited number of AAW packs to help Australian health service organisations promote
AAW. Each pack includes three t-shirts in three sizes, badgers, stickers and posters. More information about
availability of packs, distribution and other details is available on the Commission’s AAW webpage:
www.safetyandquality.gov.au/aaw
Send out the pocket prescribing cards
Download the pocket cards from the Commission web site to laminate. Ask a senior clinician to circulate them to
team members in advance of the week, or include them with the letter from the executive to clinical staff.
Use social media and join the discussion
If your health service organisation has a Facebook or Twitter account, use them to promote the week and your
activities. Check your organisation’s social media policy before you begin. You can also participate in the global
Twitter Chat on Wednesday 18 November 2015, coordinated by the European CDC. Organisations and experts
from around the world including Australia, Canada, the US and Europe will be participating.
Follow the
Commission on Twitter @ACSQHC.
Involve local media
Speak to your media advisors or public relations team about how to involve local radio stations and newspapers
Watch the videos
You can learn more about antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial stewardship by watching or showing one or
both of the following presentations, presented by clinical experts:

Dr Celia Cooper presents Think global – act local, a presentation focused on the global problem of
antimicrobial resistance, and the role of antimicrobial stewardship in addressing antimicrobial resistance in
hospital settings.

In Principles of antibiotic pharmacotherapy, Miss Caroline Chen outlines different classes of commonly used
antibiotics, their spectrum of activity and issues to consider when prescribing and administering these
commonly used agents.
Activities
and Events
Download the AAW presentations
The Commission has presentations that can be used by health professionals for raising awareness about
appropriate antibiotic use and the problem of antimicrobial resistance. You can use or adapt these slides for
presentations at Grand Rounds, or for team, unit or departmental meetings and education sessions. You could
include in your presentation some local information, for example, ask:

a team or department to talk about ways they have improved antibiotic use, including the lessons learned in
the improvement journey

a surgical team to discuss surgical prophylaxis

an infectious diseases team to give a case presentation focused on management of a specific clinical
condition, and how antibiotic stewardship supported patient care

a nurse and pharmacist to be involved in the presentation to discuss their roles in antimicrobial stewardship
as members of the multidisciplinary team.
Target professional groups
Run information sessions with specific professional groups and discuss their role in the appropriate use of
antibiotics and antimicrobial stewardship. For example, organise ward-based education sessions with nurses,
information session with pharmacists, or run a feedback session for prescribers detailing results of any
antimicrobial prescribing audits and highlighting results against the Antimicrobial Stewardship Clinical Care
Standard indicators. Consider having junior medical officers complete the online learning modules available from
the Commission and NPSMedicineWise
www.nps.org.au/health-professionals/professional-development/online-learning
Run an antibiotic awareness quiz
The Commission has a quiz available for download from the Commission website for AAW. You can use this as
is, or adapt it to your local needs. You could circulate this in the lead up to the week, and then let everyone know
the average score for the organisation during the week. Consider a prize for the team or department with the
highest number of quizzes submitted and answered correctly. Answers for the quiz will be posted on the
Commission website on Monday 16 November, at the beginning of Antibiotic Awareness Week.
Activities
and Events
Create an information display
Choose a prominent area of the hospital, with resources from the Commission as well as local resources from
your hospital or jurisdictional health department, and from NPSMedicineWise. You could also:

hand out written material with details of where to find local policies, procedures, and local processes for
seeking specialist advice or referral, as well as contact details of antimicrobial stewardship team members

have a range of health professionals rostered to staff the display, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, managers –
to reflect the multidisciplinary nature of good antibiotic management

create a display of local information relevant to antibiotic use, for example, antibiotic usage audit results, or
local resistance and susceptibility information

follow the creative idea of a hospital in 2013 and create a mobile AAW trolley. The hospital decorated a
trolley with AAW posters, resistance fighter t-shirts, MINDME pocket cards and a quiz entry box. You can
move the trolley around your health service organisation throughout the week to promote awareness and
discussion among staff members.
Conduct consumer information sessions
Inform consumers (including patients and their carers) about the reasons why antibiotics need to be used
carefully, and how they can do so. You can distribute written information to consumers about the Antimicrobial
Stewardship Clinical Care Standard, and what it means for patients and consumers. Access consumer
information sheets at www.safetyandquality.gov.au/ccs. NPS MedicineWise also has a range of resources
available at www.nps.org.au/antibiotics
Take the antibiotic resistance fighter pledge
NPS MedicineWise is encouraging all health professionals to pledge to join the fight against antibiotic resistance.
A web app on the NPS MedicineWise web site allows you to add the suburb of your workplace to the national
map of resistance fighters. After making the pledge, you will be able to generate a personalised antibiotic
resistance fighter certificate to print and display in your health service organisation, or share in social media
networks. Visit www.nps.org.au/antibiotics