NYC Health + Hospitals Partners with Firstline to Promote Appropriate Use of Antibiotics

NYC Health + Hospitals Partners with Firstline to Promote Appropriate Use of Antibiotics

Patients may develop infections with bacteria that are resistant to most or all of the antibiotics available for the treatment of their disease.

Firstline is a health technology company with a mission to help address one of the most challenging health threats by bringing people and knowledge together

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called antimicrobial resistance one of the world's greatest threats to public health

Aug 20, 2024

New York, NY - 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."

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CONTACT: [email protected]

About NYC Health + Hospitals
NYC Health + Hospitals is the largest municipal health care system in the nation serving more than a million New Yorkers annually in more than 70 patient care locations across the city's five boroughs. A robust network of outpatient, neighborhood-based primary and specialty care centers anchors care coordination with the system's trauma centers, nursing homes, post-acute care centers, home care agency, and MetroPlus health plan-all supported by 11 essential hospitals. Its diverse workforce of more than 43,000 employees is uniquely focused on empowering New Yorkers, without exception, to live the healthiest life possible. For more information, visit www.nychealthandhospitals.org and stay connected on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

About Firstline
Firstline is a health technology company with a mission to help solve humanity's greatest health challenges by bringing people and knowledge together. This is pursued through web and mobile software that distills and accelerates the flow of expert knowledge to healthcare providers. Firstline facilitates previously impossible levels of knowledge transfer between otherwise disconnected clinical experts everywhere in the world. Leaders in information design and technology, with deep experience communicating vetted clinical guidance to the point of care.

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