Overview
Evolving Strategies for Identifying and Treating Uncomplicated Urinary Tract Infections: Filling the Gaps Across Clinical Settings
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Uncomplicated urinary tract infections (uUTIs) are one of the most common infections in outpatient settings with over one-half of women experiencing an infection during their lifetime. A uUTI diagnosis is clinical, relying on patient-reported symptoms. Laboratory testing is not required for a diagnosis of uUTI, yet clinicians must identify clinical scenarios in which it might be useful and demonstrate competency with interpretation of results. If left untreated or if treatment fails, uUTIs can lead to more serious complications such as kidney or bloodstream infections, requiring hospitalization and increasing mortality.
uUTIs are a frequent indication for antibiotics in healthy individuals. Although antimicrobial stewardship programs ensure the optimal selection, dosing, and duration of antimicrobial treatment, such programs are often not in place in outpatient settings where the bulk of antibiotic prescribing occurs. Empirical antibiotic therapy for uUTIs is often initiated based on clinical presentation and local antibiotic resistance patterns. The rise of antibiotic resistance has limited the effectiveness of traditional antibiotics, leading to the introduction of new antibiotics with novel mechanisms of action to improve activity against multidrug resistant strains in uUTIs.
Pharmacists play a critical role in monitoring local antibiotic resistance patterns, optimizing antibiotic use, and educating patients. This personalized training program, leveraging ACHL’s AdaptED® platform , was designed to support pharmacists who engage patients with uUTIs. Tailored training along with resources and tools are provided to assist with diagnostic uncertainty and optimal selection of antimicrobial treatment to improve outcomes and ensure adherence while mitigating recurrence and antimicrobial resistance.
Learners who complete the training can download expert-developed educational content and practical resources to facilitate peer-to-peer learning within their team and enhance protocols related to the management of uUTIs.
This activity is intended for primary care physicians, urgent care physicians, emergency room physicians, urologists, infectious disease pharmacists, gynecologists, clinical pharmacists, health-system pharmacists, APPs, and other HCPs who diagnose and treat patients with uUTIs
Uncomplicated urinary tract infections (uUTIs) are the most prevalent bacterial infections. uUTIs are classified based on varied factors including infection location, frequency of episodes, and severity of symptoms. A diagnosis of uUTI is clinical, relying on patient-reported symptoms upon presentation including dysuria, urinary frequency, urinary urgency, and lower abdominal discomfort. Although uUTI diagnosis is not based on laboratory testing, urinalysis and microscopic examination of the urine can also be used to provide supportive evidence, particularly in cases of diagnostic uncertainty.
If left untreated or if treatment fails, uUTIs can lead to more serious complications such as kidney or bloodstream infections, which may require hospitalization or mortality. Treatment failure in uUTI can occur due to antibiotic resistance, incomplete treatment, or inadequate antibiotic selection. Although antimicrobial stewardship programs help ensure the optimal selection, dosing, and duration of antimicrobial treatment, resulting in the best clinical outcome with minimal side effects and minimal impact on subsequent resistance, such programs are often not in place in outpatient settings where most antibiotic prescribing occurs. Empirical antibiotic therapy for uUTIs is often initiated based on clinical presentation and local antibiotic resistance patterns.
The rise of antibiotic resistance has limited the effectiveness of traditional antibiotic options which have broad-spectrum activity. In turn, there are several new antibiotics with novel mechanisms of action to improve activity against multidrug resistant strains in uUTIs.
Clinicians require fluency with available data and strategies to address diagnostic uncertainty and prevent treatment failure and mitigate recurrence in patients with uUTIs using conventional and novel antibiotic therapies.
Upon completion of this activity, learners will be able to:
- Establish standards to efficiently and effectively classify and diagnose patients with uUTIs
- Interpret and apply the latest advances for addressing drug resistance in the treatment of uUTIs to prevent resistant/recurrent infections
- Select optimal antibiotic regimen based on patient-specific factors and antibiotic susceptibility for uUTI
- Construct collaborative, interprofessional care practices to improve the quality of care for patients with uUTIs
Activity Topics/Agenda
- Overview of uUTIs
- Diagnosis of uUTIs
- Treatment of uUTIs
- Novel Strategies
- Treatment Failure and Recurrence
- Practical Tools
Provided by the Academy for Continued Healthcare Learning (ACHL).
This educational activity is supported by an independent medical education grant from GSK
Kalpana Gupta, MD
Professor of Medicine/Infectious Diseases
Boston University School of Medicine
and Chief, Infectious Diseases
VA Boston HCS
Boston, MA
Professor of Medicine/Infectious Diseases
Boston University School of Medicine
and Chief, Infectious Diseases
VA Boston HCS
Boston, MA
Charles Vega, MD, FAAFP
Health Sciences Clinical Professor
UC Irvine Department of Family Medicine
Director, UCI Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community
Assistant Dean for Culture and Community Education
UC Irvine School of Medicine
Santa Ana, CA
Zachary Nelson, PharmD, MPH
Specialist Clinical Pharmacist in Infectious Diseases
West Region Lead, Antimicrobial Stewardship Program
HealthPartners
Minneapolis, MN
The Academy for Continued Healthcare Learning (ACHL) requires that the faculty participating in an accredited continuing education activity disclose all affiliations or other financial relationships within 24 months (1) with the manufacturers of any commercial product(s) and/or provider(s) of commercial services discussed in an educational presentation and (2) with all ineligible companies. All relevant financial relationships have been mitigated prior to this activity.
The following financial relationships have been provided:
Kalpana Gupta, MD
Consulting Agreements: GlaxoSmithKline, Innovative Diagnostics, Iterum Therapeutics, Pfizer
The following financial relationships have been provided:
Charles Vega, MD, FAAFP
Consulting Agreements: Boehringer Ingelheim, Exact Sciences, GlaxoSmithKline
The following financial relationships have been provided:
Zachary Nelson, PharmD, MPH
No financial relationships to disclose
ACHL staff members and others involved with the planning, development, and review of the content for this activity have no relevant affiliations or financial relationships to disclose.
To receive credit, learners are required to view the online activity, and complete the posttest and evaluation. To receive credit, 80% must be achieved on the posttest. A certificate will be immediately available. There is no fee to participate in the activity or for the generation of the certificate.
For questions, contact Karen Catino at kcatino@achlcme.org
Partial credit may not be awarded for CPE/CBRN credit; participation in the complete activity is required to receive credit.
The Academy for Continued Healthcare Learning is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
The Academy for Continued Healthcare Learning designates this enduring material for a maximum of 2.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
Physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and nurses may participate in this educational activity and earn a certificate of completion as AAPA, AANP, and ANCC accept AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ through their reciprocity agreements. Learners are encouraged to contact their licensing or specialty board to confirm that participation in this activity will count toward any continuing education requirements. This certificate includes information regarding the credit designation of this activity. This may be presented to a licensing board as evidence or documentation of participation at a bona fide continuing education activity. ACHL makes its best efforts to offer CE credit or contact hours to identified members of the target audience. However, ACHL does not guarantee that any certificate will be accepted.Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn up to 2.0 MOC points in the American Board of Internal Medicine’s (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. Participants will earn MOC points equivalent to the amount of CME credits claimed for the activity. It is the CME activity provider’s responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABIM MOC points.
By providing your ABIM Diplomate number, you consent to have ACHL and/or our educational partners submit your participation in this activity to the ABIM through the ACCME PARS system. ABIM credit will be submitted to PARS on the first day of each month.
Completion of this activity, including the pretest, posttest, and follow-up assessments, qualifies as a medium weight MIPS improvement activity under MACRA and can be claimed as completion of IA_PSPA 28 of an Accredited Safety or Quality Improvement Program in the Quality Payment Program. Clinicians should submit their improvement activities by attestation via the CMS Quality Payment Program website. You will receive a follow-up survey in 30 days to document improvements implemented in practice. At that time you will receive an additional MIPS Improvement certificate.
The Academy for Continued Healthcare Learning is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education as a provider of continuing pharmacy education. This activity has been approved for 2.0 contact hours.
ACPE Universal Activity Number: 0396-0000-25-041-H01-P
Activity Type: Application
Release Date: February 20, 2026
Expiration Date: February 20, 2027
CPE credit will be submitted to CPE Monitor® on the first business day of each month.
