The Challenge of Clostridium difficile and Antimicrobial-Resistant Gram-negative Infections: Opportunities to Re-evaluate Current Management Approaches

Release Date: Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Expiration Date: Thursday November 15, 2018

Program Overview
Serious bacterial infections place a substantial clinical and economic burden in the United States and are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality associated with hospital-acquired conditions. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have identified a number of bacteria as urgent or serious threats, including ESBL-producing and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa, and C. difficile. In response to the rising threat and burden associated with these infections, antimicrobial stewardship programs are now mandatory in hospital settings to fulfill quality improvement criteria. As medication experts, clinical pharmacists are becoming more involved in treatment decisions related to serious infections. This program is designed to build competence, confidence, and skills in the management of MDR Gram-negative infections and C. difficile infection. Expert faculty will review the latest approaches to treat these infections (e.g., optimized dosing, newer antimicrobials and alternative therapeutics) while also demonstrating how to incorporate antimicrobial stewardship principles into clinical practice.

Target Audience
This continuing education activity is planned to meet the need of healthcare providers in a variety of practice settings, including large and small health systems, outpatient clinics, managed-care organizations, long-term care facilities, and academia. This activity is especially beneficial for health-system pharmacists who are on the frontline of managing patients with serious bacterial infections.

Learning Objectives
Upon completing this activity, participants will be able to:

Explain current trends in antimicrobial resistance and identify patient risk factors for infection
Assess the role of newer antimicrobial agents as part of the armamentarium in the management of infections caused by multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria and C. difficile
Evaluate the utility of novel approaches that reduce the risk of recurrent C. difficile infection in high-risk patients
Describe antimicrobial stewardship strategies that aim to minimize the burden of serious bacterial infections in healthcare institutions

Educational Format
This Online Presentation is based on a 2017 health-system pharmacists series. It includes the following sections:

Applying the Latest Approaches in the Management of C. difficile Infection and Recurrence
Kevin W. Garey, PharmD

Current Therapeutic Options for Antimicrobial-Resistant Gram-Negative Infections
Keith A. Rodvold, PharmD

Faculty

Kevin W. Garey, PharmD, MS, FASHP

Chair, Department of Pharmacy Practice and Translational Research
Professor of Pharmacy Practice
College of Pharmacy
University of Houston
Houston, TX

Keith A. Rodvold, PharmD, FCCP, FIDSA

Professor of Pharmacy Practice and Medicine
Colleges of Pharmacy and Medicine
University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL

Pharmacists
Center for Independent Healthcare Education is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education as a provider for continuing pharmacy education. Center has assigned 1.0 contact hour (0.1 CEUs) of continuing pharmacy education credits for participating in this activity.
ACPE UAN: 0473-9999-17-014-H01-P
Activity type: Knowleddge-based

For questions regarding the accreditation of this activity, please contact us at info@jointsponsor.com

Method of Participation and Instruction for Credit

Review the entire CE information including target audience, learning objectives, and disclosures.
Review the activity in its entirety.
Complete the Online Post Test, Evaluation, and Credit Application form
Please note that to receive credit you must achieve a score of at least 70%.
The information that you participated will be uploaded to CPEMonitor and you will be able to access your credits from the profile you set up with NABP. For more information, please visit http://www.nabp.net/.

Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest
In accordance with policies set forth by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), Center for Independent Healthcare Education requires all faculty members and spouses/significant others with an opportunity to affect the content of a continuing education activity to disclose any relevant financial relationships during the past 12 months with commercial interests. A commercial interest is any entity producing, marketing, reselling or distributing health care goods or services consumed by or used on patients. Relationships with commercial interests and conflicts of interest resulting from those relationships must be revealed to the audience and resolved prior to the activity.

Relevant relationships include roles such as speaker, author, consultant, independent contractor (including research), employee, investor, advisory committee member, board member, review panelist, and investigator. If a potential speaker or author indicates a possible conflict of interest, the conflict will be resolved by choosing another speaker or author for that topical area, or the slides, handouts, and/or monograph will be reviewed and approved by a qualified commercially-disinterested peer.

Disclosures
Keith A. Rodvold, PharmD has relevant financial relationships with the following commercial interests:
Advisory Board: Achaogen, Bayer, The Medicines Company, Motif, Nabriva, Paratek, Shionogi, Theravance, Melinta, GlaxoSmithKlein, Spero Therapeutics, Zavante, Enstasis, Wockhardt, Meiji
            Research Support: Allergan, Theravance
            Speakers Bureau: Merck & Co., Inc. and The Medicines Company
            Safety Monitoring Committee: Janssen Pharmaceuticals
Dr. Rodvold discusses the off-label uses for the following products: ceftazidime-avibactam, ceftolozane-tazobactam, and meropenem-vaborbactam.

Kevin W. Garey, PharmD has relevant financial relationships with commercial interests:
Research Support: Merck & Co., Inc.
Dr. Garey discusses the off-label uses for the following products: role of metronidazole for C. difficile infection.

No (other) speakers, authors, planners or content reviewers have any relevant financial relationships to disclose.

Content review confirmed that the content was developed in a fair, balanced manner free from commercial bias. Disclosure of a relationship is not intended to suggest or condone commercial bias in any presentation, but it is made to provide participants with information that might be of potential importance to their evaluation of a presentation.

Fee
There is no fee to participate in this activity.

Hardware/Software Requirements
Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari or Google Chrome with the QuickTime Plug-in
Note: Please disable any “pop-up blocker” features.

Software/Hardware
Adobe® Reader version 7 or above to view PDF files (If you do not have Adobe® Reader, you can download it for free from Adobe.com)
Adobe Flash Player version 10 or above to view multimedia content (If you do
not have Adobe Flash Player, you can download it for free from Adobe.com)

Connection Speed
Cable, DSL, or better of at least 300 kbps

System Check
Please e-mail any questions or concerns to info@vemcomeded.com.

Privacy Policy
http://www.vemcomeded.com/privacy.asp

Joint Providership
This activity is jointly provided by Center for Independent Healthcare Education and Vemco MedEd.

Commercial Support

This activity is supported by an educational grant from Merck & Co., Inc.

By clicking on the activity icon below, I acknowledge that I have read the entire CE information.