Improving Antibiotic Stewardship for Diarrheal Disease With Probability-Based Electronic Clinical Decision Support

Importance: Inappropriate use of antibiotics for diarrheal illness can result in adverse effects and increase in antimicrobial resistance. Objective: To determine whether the diarrheal etiology prediction (DEP) algorithm, which uses patient-specific and location-specific features to estimate the probability that diarrhea etiology is exclusively viral, impacts antibiotic prescriptions in patients with acute diarrhea. Design, Setting, and Participants: A randomized crossover study was conducted to evaluate the DEP incorporated into a smartphone-based electronic clinical decision-support (eCDS) tool. The DEP calculated the probability of viral etiology of diarrhea, based on dynamic patient-specific and location-specific features. Physicians were randomized in the first 4-week study period to the intervention arm (eCDS with the DEP) or control arm (eCDS without the DEP), followed by a 1-week…