Quality assuring adult anti-microbial guidelines.

PURPOSE: Guidelines have been produced in nearly all developed countries to provide cost-effective hospital care. The study's purpose, therefore, was to determine whether a London hospital's anti-microbial guidelines conform to this principle. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The paper's approach was a literature search to determine anti-microbial therapies for certain diseases and comparing outcomes with what hospital guidelines recommend.
FINDINGS: There are significant discrepancies in the hospital anti-microbial guidelines and what is recommended in the literature. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: Local microbial patterns for these diseases were not studied as they were not formally available and these could have had an impact on guidelines recommendations. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Local guidelines influence day-to-day hospital clinical practice and their robustness is important. They need to comply with national and/or international guidelines. Deviations from these guidelines need appropriate comments within the documents to highlight their validity. Such an approach would facilitate medical students and junior doctor training who depend on these guidelines for good clinical practice. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The study provides an important contribution to developing hospital clinical guidelines.