Diagnostic Stewardship (May 2025)

Course Overview

The Virginia Infection Prevention Training Center’s, Diagnostic Stewardship, provides a deep dive into strategies for optimizing test use to improve patient outcomes. Presented by Dr. Daniel Morgan, this webinar explores the intersection of diagnostic stewardship and antimicrobial stewardship, examines testing practices that influence HAI metrics, and reviews how infection preventionists can support implementation. Topics include medical overuse, cognitive bias in testing, diagnostic excellence, and practical interventions for reducing unnecessary tests while improving diagnostic accuracy.

Target Audience

Target audience for this course are healthcare professionals who are or will be directly involved in infection prevention activities in their facilities. These are infection prevention professionals who have participated in and gained considerable knowledge through specialized infection and control training and have minimal to moderate practice or fieldwork experience with infection prevention and control concepts.

 Audience examples: Advanced Beginner to Proficient Infection Preventionist, Advanced Beginner to Proficient HAI/AR/IPC staff, Novice to Proficient Healthcare/Public Health Epidemiologist, Infectious Disease /Antimicrobial Stewardship Program Pharmacist.

Overall Learning Objectives

• Explain what medical overuse is and how it can adversely affect patients.
• Describe the link between diagnostic stewardship and antimicrobial stewardship.
• Identify examples of diagnostic stewardship.
• Discuss how infection prevention teams can facilitate diagnostic stewardship efforts in their facilities.