Comparison of Content and Format for Upper Respiratory Illness Antibiotic Prescribing Guideline Developed by Two Midwestern Organizations.

Antimicrobial resistance is a rapidly emerging public health problem, largely due to antibiotic prescribing which lacks an evidence base. We previously reported the results of local efforts within a single healthcare system at devising clinical guidelines to reduce unnecessary and even inappropriate antibiotic prescribing. This paper presents a comparison of the antibiotic guidelines developed by that process with those released by Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement, a national clinical quality organization. We found that the content of the guidelines are comparable, but not identical, while the formats differed, fitting separate but overlapping niches.