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Michigan hospitals were able to cut down on unnecessary treatment of asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB) thanks to better diagnostic stewardship, according to a study. The percentage of patients with a positive urine culture who had ASB fell from 34.1% in the year 2017 to 22.5% in 2020 in a consortium of 46 hospitals. That meant less ASB patients were being tested, so they would not be treated with antibiotics for inappropriately diagnosed urinary tract infection (UTI), according to Valerie Vaughn, MD, MSc, of the Michigan Hospital Medicine Safety Consortium and a hospital medicine researcher at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Michigan hospitals were able to cut down on unnecessary treatment of asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB) thanks to better diagnostic stewardship, according to a study. The percentage of patients with a positive urine culture who had ASB fell from 34.1% in the year 2017 to 22.5% in 2020 in a consortium of 46 hospitals. That meant less ASB patients were being tested, so they would not be treated with antibiotics for inappropriately diagnosed urinary tract infection (UTI), according to Valerie Vaughn, MD, MSc, of the Michigan Hospital Medicine Safety Consortium and a hospital medicine researcher at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.