The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called antimicrobial resistance one of the world’s greatest threats to public health
New York, NY – August 20, 2024: NYC Health + Hospitals today announced a partnership with Firstline, a company with an app designed to help clinicians more appropriately use antibiotics in accordance to our hospital guidelines, which minimizes the risk of antimicrobial resistance. Antimicrobial resistance develops when antibiotics are over-prescribed, allowing microbes to develop the ability to resist treatment with antibiotics and threatening the health of people infected with these organisms. Patients who develop antimicrobial resistance may not have any available treatments for their infection. Five NYC Health + Hospitals sites – Bellevue, Elmhurst, Lincoln, Queens, and South Brooklyn Health – are participating in this launch and have uploaded their prescribing guidelines, antibiotic resistance data, and infection control isolation policies. Using this content, healthcare providers will be able to choose how to best treat certain infections and prevent the spread of these infections within the hospital. NYC Health + Hospitals providers can access this content by downloading the Firstline app on their smartphone or from a hospital computer.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has called antimicrobial resistance one of the world’s greatest threats to public health. Reducing inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics is key to reducing the risk of adverse events, antimicrobial resistance, hospital-acquired infections, and other complications associated with antibiotics. Just this month, the New York State and City Health Departments issued a health advisory for providers to stop prescribing the antibiotic ciprofloxacin for invasive meningococcal disease post-exposure prophylaxis due to increasing antimicrobial resistance.
“Firstline is user friendly, easy to access on any mobile device, and will make it effortless for our healthcare workers to access guidelines wherever they are providing patient care,” said NYC Health + Hospitals Chief Medical Information Officer of Population Health Gabriel Cohen, MD.
“Firstline should be a go-to resource for all prescribers of antibiotics at NYC Health + Hospitals,” said NYC Health + Hospitals System Chief Hospital Epidemiologist Justin Chan, MD, MPH. “The app offers our providers our hospital-approved guidelines and best practices that have historically been hard to access in one location. It will empower our physicians to make the best possible treatment decisions.”
“The overuse and misuse of antibiotics is one of the biggest challenges we must combat to safeguard the public health of city as large and diverse as New York,” said NYC Health + Hospitals System Chief of Infectious Diseases Maurice Policar, MD. “We are optimistic the Firstline app will be a gamechanger. It is easy to use and will take the guess work out of which medication to prescribe, leading to much better outcomes for our patients.”
