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Welcome to your personalised website tour of the AMR Vet Collective!
What does the AMR Vet Collective do?
The AMR Collective mandate is simple, we translate the science around anti-microbial resistance (AMR) and stewardship into meaningful and practical information veterinarians can call upon to make informed, evidence-based decisions in their daily practice. We want every clinician to feel confident in understanding stewardship principles so that they can confidently diagnose, prescribe, and manage infectious patients.
What is antimicrobial resistance?
When microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses and fungi are able to resist the effects of medicines designed to destroy or inactivate them, they are considered ‘antimicrobial resistant’. The mechanisms for this varies between microorganisms but one of the key factors influencing selection for these microorganism is our use of antimicrobial agents.
What does AMR mean for veterinary practice?
When microorganisms become resistant, simple infections can become chronic, serious, or even life-threatening.
This leads to increased costs of veterinary care, more antimicrobial use, and a higher rate of treatment failure. More antimicrobial use leads to more selection pressure for resistance and a growing reliance on a shrinking group of effective antibiotics.
In veterinary practice today we are seeing an increase in resistant surgical site infections and simple urinary tract infections that cannot be treated with standard antimicrobial choices.
Reducing our use of antibiotics when they are not needed can help to ensure that these life savings medicines remain effective when we really do need them.
How can the AMR website help you?
We know you’re busy, so we’ve put together this quick personalised tour guide based on your role and level of familiarity with AMR (antimicrobial resistance) to help you get the most out of our website.
I am a Veterinarian and I don’t know much about AMR
Well, first of all, you’re in good company! With so much to be across daily, AMR is often something that we’re kind of aware of, but not really clear about. This website is designed to help you develop your understanding.
For some good summary and background information, check out our About AMR page. The next stop should be our Continuing Education page, where you can delve a little deeper into some open-access journal articles – we’ve filtered the content based on papers that are relevant, up-to-date, and easily readable – you’re welcome!
You will definitely want to check out our Online Vet AMS Course. It’s a comprehensive Australian and New Zealand online course in veterinary antimicrobial stewardship, created for people like you!
You’ll also find great short video clinical skills refreshers, each with a downloadable protocol to help you get the most out of your in-house cytology. We think that Antimicrobial Stewardship is about more than just the way we prescribe antibiotics – our diagnostic process is key to identifying which patients need antimicrobials in the first place!
The other page you’ll definitely want to bookmark is the Guidelines page, which features all of the available antimicrobial prescribing guidelines in Australia and New Zealand in one easy location. We’ll also be updating this page with advice from experts on less common species, so watch this space. And of course be sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn so you don’t miss out on new announcements and resources.
I am a Veterinarian and I am all over AMR
That’s great news!
Hopefully, this website can still be useful in providing a single place to find all of the latest antimicrobial prescribing guidelines and helping you to keep up to date in this ever-evolving space. You’ll also find some great resources to print out and display around the clinic to help keep the rest of your team on board and up to date too. We know from research that having an Antimicrobial Stewardship Champion is one of the key ingredients for improved antimicrobial prescribing, so we’d love to support you in playing that role in your workplace.
Well hello there! Wonderful to have a motivated Practice Manager who clearly cares about quality patient care! Your practice is lucky to have you. Our About AMR page is a good place to start for some background information, and our Online Vet AMS Course, which has modules designed for Practice Managers. Make sure you sign up to our Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn so that you don’t miss any announcement on new resources.
Until then, our Your Practice page should help to keep you busy! There are several resources available for sharing with clients, printing and displaying around the clinic, and to guide you and your team in establishing a local prescribing policy or even an Antimicrobial Stewardship Program.
You are often the person who helps steer the ship on busy days, and sometimes the only one able to keep their head clear on the long-term goals of your practice. We need you to help make sure we are heading in the direction we want to go and help us put in place the protocols and procedures that will ensure that we’re going to get there!
I am a Veterinary Nurse or Vet Tech
Welcome! We are thrilled to have you here – we all know that no veterinarian worth their salt can get through a busy day without your support – so first up – a big thank you! Thank you for making our job easier, and thank you for being engaged enough to want to keep up to date with AMR and help support Antimicrobial Stewardship in your workplace.
We’re really excited to have several modules in our Online Vet AMS Coursedesigned for nurses and techs, so check them out and also follow us on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn so you don’t miss announcements on new resources!
You can also check out some background information on our About AMR page, revise your in-house diff quick and gram staining protocols on our Continuing Education page, and have a look at the resources to support stewardship and client communications about AMR on our Your Practice page.
We know from the literature that having nurses and technicians onboard with AMS is a critical ingredient in the success of any stewardship program. You are often the conduit between different vets, patients, management, and clients, and you play an important role not only in patient care but also in how our practices operate daily. We need you to be at your best!
I am a vet student (or New Graduate!)
Well, you are clearly an excellent student if you are spending time keeping yourself up to date with AMR! We are grateful that you found time for us in your busy study schedule!
You are the future of our profession, and often the ones bringing the latest evidence into practice, whether that’s during your clinical rotations, or when you graduate and start your first job. This website will be a great place to start your education on antimicrobial resistance and stewardship, try the About AMR page as a first stop. Our Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn pages will inform you of new resources as they become available. Hopefully, the many resources contained within our Prescribing Support, Guidelines, and Continuing Education pages will come in handy when you are working on assignments or facing those first, often challenging, months in practice.
Remember, vet is a team sport and you are never on your own! Our prescribing support tools, like decision trees and antimicrobial prescribing guidelines, are here to help you apply best-practice evidence to your case management. By starting to use these resources now, you will be well on the way to forming some great habits and knowing where to access the evidence you need in difficult cases.
At The AMR Collective, we translate the science around AMR and stewardship into meaningful and practical information that veterinarians can call upon to make informed, evidence-based decisions in their daily practice. We want every clinician to feel confident in understanding stewardship principles so that they can diagnose, prescribe, and manage infectious patients with confidence.
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