Implementation of a once-daily aminoglycoside program in a large community-teaching hospital.

Recently, there has been an emergence of interest in the use of once-daily aminoglycoside dosing. In an attempt to take advantage of the pharmacodynamic properties of these agents and to reduce the potential for toxicity, a once-daily aminoglycoside program was developed at this institution. This program uses a fixed intravenous dose of 7 mg/kg with dosing interval adjustments based on estimates of creatinine clearance or a single random serum aminoglycoside concentration. Because this automatic conversion program was initiated hospital-wide, more than 2,400 patients received the regimen with no apparent alteration in clinical success and the incidence of toxicity was lower than that previously observed. The purpose of this report was to describe the implementation process and unique features of this hospital-wide once-daily aminoglycoside program in a 850-bed community-teaching hospital.