PrescQIPP

Antimicrobial Stewardship Visual Data Comparative Tool (2025)

NHS Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ICB

Project summary

Summary:

  • Meaningful benchmarking is crucial for Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) quality improvement, yet traditional data presentations often fail to resonate with GP practices who perceive their circumstances as unique which hinders engagement and progress.
  • In response to this challenge, our innovative visual data comparative tool enables us to focus on individual GP practices and compare their antimicrobial prescribing against peers with similar demographics including extremes of age and deprivation.
  • Although in its early stages, this tool is being actively used to support AMS visits with outlier practice colleagues who are not achieving their antibiotic total prescribing and percentage of broad-spectrum targets and are usually outliers compared to their peers.
  • These visits are aimed to support colleagues; offering practical tips and advice on how they can improve, urging them to contact those comparable peers using the tool to support them in the process and accelerate local improvement in AMS performance.
  • For an example of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Visual Comparative Tool, refer to Appendix A - A visual example of Antimicrobial Stewardship Visual Comparative Tool (anonymised).

What we did and why:

  • We developed the visual data comparative tool to directly address the feedback from GP practices expressing dissatisfaction with traditional benchmarking data, that didn't account for key demographic factors such as extremes of age and deprivation. Practices argued these factors significantly influenced their prescribing, making direct comparisons feel unfair and unhelpful.
  • Our aim was to create equitable and relevant benchmarking to foster engagement and motivate quality improvement.

How we did it:

  • The visual data comparative tool was developed by first integrating two established AMS measures; "Antibacterial BNF5.1 Items Per STAR PU" and "Proportion of broad-spectrum antibiotics." These were plotted together on a single scatter chart, providing an immediate dual view of practice performance for more nuanced comparisons.
  • The crucial innovative step involved incorporating demographic data to create truly comparable practice groups, including the percentage of the practice population under 15, the percentage of those 65 or older, and deprivation scores from the national Indices of Deprivation 2019. This profiling allowed for a data-driven understanding of practice context.
  • An algorithm was built to dynamically match practices based on demographic profiles, allowing users to identify demographically similar peers. Designed with an interactive Excel interface for clarity and customisation.

What outcomes we got:

  • The tool was formally presented to the AMS Primary Care Working Group in March 2024, followed by a regional AMS session in May 2024. Feedback directly informed refinements, leading to the tool being fully embedded as Business as Usual (BAU) within our AMS support framework.
  • To view a copy of the presentation, refer to Appendix B - Introducing the AMS Comparative Tool.