Fortis Healthcare, a Rs.4,700 crore healthcare company, announced that Fortis Mulund, one of its major hospitals in Mumbai has been conferred the prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ) Award for ‘The Medical Team of the Year 2014.’ The honour was bestowed on the hospital for its outstanding “Antibiotic Review Programme – and Antibiotic Restriction Policy.”

Rampant and uncontrolled use of antibiotics has been rendering many of them progressively ineffective against microbes routinely associated with hospital infections. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has now cited this as a major problem and has declared it a global public health emergency. The WHO has been calling for judicious antibiotic use and exercising caution in conserving the world’s armamentarium of known antibiotics.

Congratulating the team at Fortis Mulund, for winning the prestigious BMJ Award, Aditya Vij, CEO, Fortis Healthcare Limited, said, “Antibiotics are a precious weapon in our arsenal against disease. We need to conserve them through controlled use and pay utmost heed to the dictum ‘the right drug for the right bug’. With this in mind, Fortis has instituted a formalised Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) programme at all our hospitals with outstanding results. We are making significant headway and a definite impact in our hospitals and I commend the efforts of our Doctors, Nurses and Pharmacy, in this endeavour.”

The Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) programme at Fortis Mulund was set up more than five years back and has gained significant traction in the last two years with the rationalisation in the use of life-saving antibiotics brought about with the unconditional support of Fortis clinicians, in anti-microbial prescription practices.

Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD), an international pharmaceutical major is providing valuable know how and guidance in the execution of the programme.

The ultimate goal of the program is to educate the community regarding the misuse of antibiotics and address the global outbreak of anti-microbial resistance for the safety of our patients and the larger community.

The programme strives for the de-escalation in the consumption of restricted antibiotics with concomitant benefits of reduced toxicity, side effects and costs. The ultimate goal is to address global outbreak of anti-microbial resistance. The vision is to bring about a change in the antibiotic prescription pattern amongst clinicians; preserve the ecology of the hospital with a focus on the safety of patients and the community.

The BMJ Awards are UK’s premier medical awards, launched in 2009, recognising and celebrating the inspirational work done by doctors and their teams.