Key takeaways:
- Regional health authority spending roughly $170K for the app, says, vice-president.
- Dr. Peter Daley, an infectious disorders doctor, and Memorial University medical microbiologist, states outpatient antimicrobial drug use is falling in Newfoundland and Labrador but should decrease even more.
Eastern Health is spending on software that it expects will impede antibiotic resistance in Newfoundland and Labrador while making drug prescriptions more precise and efficient.
Dr. Peter Daley, an infectious disorders doctor and medical microbiologist at Memorial University stated Newfoundland and Labrador has the highest rate of outpatient antimicrobial drug use in Canada — and while it fell from 2017 to 2021, it still isn’t ideal.
Read more: 4 St. John’s Catholic churches sold and to shut doors by September
“We’d like to see it come down much further,” he said Wednesday at an event at the Sheraton Hotel, revealing the plan. “When we think that maybe half of the prescriptions should never be shared, then we have a long way to go to improve.”
Antimicrobial drugs are used to minister various illnesses but can cause liver and kidney damage or make patients sicker if the incorrect medication is prescribed. Additionally, patients worldwide are developing resistance to drugs, like antibiotics, due to excessive use.
Source – cbc.ca
