The Confounding Role of Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs in Understanding the Impact of Technology on Patient Care.

Numerous studies have demonstrated the benefit of the combination of antimicrobial stewardship program (ASP) intervention and rapid diagnostic testing (RDT). However, few studies have attempted to study the incremental benefit of ASP and RDT, making it difficult to understand the true benefits of each intervention. This issue is discussed in the context of an article by S. H. McVane and F. S. Nolte (J Clin Microbiol 54:2476-2484, 2016, http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1128/JCM.00996-16), with suggestions about how the findings of this study can be applied to other areas of clinical microbiology.