LUMED, a major player in the health informatics industry, was co-founded by Louis Valiquette, a medical microbiologist and infectious disease specialist at the CIUSSS de l’Estrie – CHUS (Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux de l’Estrie – Centre hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke) and professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Université de Sherbrooke. The company developed APSS, the first automated antibiotic prescription surveillance system in Canada. Its optimized algorithms—the cornerstone of this software—allow users to continuously monitor patients’ changing conditions and modify their prescriptions accordingly to provide the most appropriate treatment at all times.
Or, as Dr. Valiquette puts it, “The right drug, the right dose, at the right time, for the right duration.”
Every day, pharmacy departments receive an astounding number of prescriptions. There is not enough time to review each one manually, within a reasonable amount of time, without omitting critical data. LUMED’s intervention system is designed and tested to significantly reduce the number of potentially inaccurate prescriptions. The system can detect discrepancies in prescriptions and alert users, such as pharmacists and infectious disease specialists. Users can then make recommendations to prescribers based on relevant references and the APSS results. Users then document whether recommendations are accepted or rejected—all this while methodically prioritizing the most urgent interventions.
In addition to reducing the amount of intravenous antibiotics administered, the risk of multi-resistant infections and the associated costs, APSS gives healthcare staff members access to the latest clinical data so they can intervene faster. Patients, in turn, receive optimal service faster. This user-friendly, turnkey software can also be customized and adapted to the priorities of each centre.
After six years of use, APSS has made a number of positive impacts at the CIUSSS de l’Estrie – CHUS, where Dr. Valiquette integrated the software into the existing antimicrobial surveillance program. The net result: APSS helped reduce antimicrobial consumption by nearly a quarter, resulting in roughly $2 million in savings. An additional reduction in hospitalization by an average of two days in length of stay for patients receiving antimicrobials has potentially resulted in even higher savings. To date, more than 12,000 recommendations have been approved, with a physician acceptance rate of 91%.
Watch the video to learn more about Louis Valiquette, LUMED and APSS, and to find out how to optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of prescription programs.
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