​Each year in the United States, antibiotic-resistant bacteria infect 2 million peopleⁱ. To help address this issue, the Public Health Foundation (PHF) is working with the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to support health department antibiotic stewardship and healthcare-associated infection (HAI) programs. PHF will be conducting a series of conversations with state and local health departments about their work in antibiotic stewardship and how they may be addressing HAIs.

PHF’s Performance Improvement Specialist, Julie Sharp, will talk with state and local health departments about their antibiotic stewardship and HAI efforts, successes, and challenges with their programs, as well as the impact of collaboration among community partners to advance antibiotic stewardship. In addition, tools, resources, and strategies for successful antibiotic stewardship will be collected and compiled into a final product that can assist health departments create or improve antibiotic stewardship and HAI programs and promote cross-learning among health departments.