Does Inclusion of Viral Prescription Pad Resources Increase Responsiveness to Feedback About Antibiotic Prescribing in Primary Care

Antibiotic prescribing rate

Antibiotic overuse is common and antibiotic prescribing contributes to rising rates of
 antimicrobial resistance. Primary care physicians prescribe the majority of all antibiotics
 and there is large inter-physician variability in prescribing that cannot be explained by
 differences in patient populations.
 
 In Ontario, audit and feedback (A&F) is routinely offered to primary care providers from a
 variety of sources. Ontario Health - an agency created by the Government of Ontario -
 provides A&F via email to physicians who voluntarily sign up for their MyPractice reports.
 These are multi-topic reports with aggregated (physician-level) data. As of November 2021,
 the MyPractice reports for family physicians will include data on antibiotic prescribing. To
 date, less than half of Ontario family physicians have signed up for the MyPractice reports
 from Ontario Health.
 
 For this study, the investigators will conduct a trial to investigate the effect of adding
 viral prescription pad resources to family physician A&F received through a MyPractice:
 Primary Care report. This evaluation provides an opportunity to determine if the addition of
 this resource to an A&F intervention increases changes to antibiotic prescribing.