How do general practitioners access guidelines and utilise electronic medical records to make clinical decisions on antibiotic use? Results from an Australian qualitative study.

Current barriers to the use of antibiotic guidelines include GPs' experience, patient factors, practice culture, and ease of access and cost of guidelines. To reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing and to promote more rational use of antibiotic in the community, guidelines should be made available, accessible and easy to use, with minimal cost to practicing GPs. Integration of evidence-based antibiotic guidelines within the EMR in the form of a clinical decision support tool could optimise guideline use and increase guideline-concordant prescribing.