As in other countries, the growing resistance to antimicrobial drugs is also taking place in the Netherlands; the primary cause being the total consumption of antibiotics. Given the steady decline in the discovery of new antimicrobials, better use of agents currently available is warranted. Guidelines describing appropriate antimicrobial therapy play an important role; however, such guidelines are not optimally used in daily practice. Quality indicators can be used to assess the quality of antibiotic treatment and evaluate the impact of interventions aimed at improving care. Quality indicators used for evaluating treatment of infections of the respiratory and urinary tracts are developed previously. A comprehensive set of indicators that could be used to assess the quality of hospital antibiotic use for all bacterial infections has not yet been developed. A new project has recently been started in the Netherlands called 'The development of Reliable generic quality Indicators for the optimalisation of ANTibiotic use in the hospital' (RIANT study) for developing such a set of comprehensive indicators.