Medical Knowledge Sharing

North York General Hospital

North York General Hospital is one of Canada's community-based academic hospitals. Providing an exceptional care experience for patients and their families, it has been providing diverse community services to the North Toronto area since 1968. The hospital offers a wide range of acute care, outpatient and long-term care services at three sites: the main site, the Branson Outpatient Centre and the Seniors Health Centre.

Apparatus

Canada has developed a hand-held detector to help reduce the use of antibiotics

As more and more organisms become resistant to antibiotics, the threat to human health is increasing. The overuse of antibiotics leads to drug resistance. It is very important to limit the use of antibiotics. The research team of the University of Alberta in Canada has recently developed a hand-held detection instrument, which allows first-line clinicians to distinguish between patients with viral infection or bacterial infection within a few minutes, thus helping to reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions and overuse of antibiotics. Because antibiotics are only effective for bacteria, if the patient is infected with virus, there is no need to prescribe antibiotics.