A clinical decision support tool for dentists has been successfully commercialised from Dr Leanne Teoh’s PhD research and sub-licensed to MIMS Australia to create MIMS Drugs4dent®
During her career as a pharmacist and dentist, Dr Leanne Teoh recognised that there was no specific resource to assist dentists with prescribing medications or provision of dental-specific drug information.
“Dental patients present at clinic with many pre-existing conditions like diabetes and heart conditions, and at all stages of life including during pregnancy and the elderly,” explains Dr Teoh.
“Many of these patients are already taking medications which have the potential to interact with drugs prescribed by their dental practitioner, as well as medications that may affect the outcome of dental procedures.
“So that’s how the idea for Drugs4dent® came about – to bridge the gap between drug knowledge and dental clinical practice.”
Dr Teoh developed the digital tool during her PhD research under the supervision of Professor Michael McCullough at the Melbourne Dental School.
The drug compendium and prescribing tool Drugs4dent® is now available through MIMS, the leading supplier of medicines information to Australian healthcare professionals.
MIMS Drugs4dent® provides information about the impact of drugs on dental procedures, oral adverse effects of drugs, safety checks such as drug and allergy interactions to reduce prescribing errors, helps dentists prescribe according to guidance and assists with calculating pediatric doses.
The digital tool is also designed to reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescribing by providing patient education about the appropriate use of antibiotics for dental conditions.
Antibiotics prescribed by dentists account for a significant 10 per cent of all antibiotics prescribed worldwide, but up to 55 per cent of those antibiotics are prescribed unnecessarily by dentists in Australia.
The challenge
Although there are many medication resources available, usually used by general practitioners and pharmacists, there was nothing available to support dentists at point-of-care when they manage patients taking medications.
For example, some medications impact healing by causing immune suppression or increasing a patient’s risk of bleeding, which need to be considered before invasive dental procedures such as tooth removal.
Dr Teoh and the team sought input from around 50 dental practitioners and dental specialists during testing and design, to ensure that Drugs4dent® would meet the needs of dentists.
The opportunity
Dr Teoh and Professor McCullough identified the need for a digital prescribing tool to assist with appropriate prescribing, as well as understanding the effects of drugs on dental treatment.
By identifying gaps and barriers to appropriate prescribing during her PhD, Dr Teoh designed Drugs4dent® to be a comprehensive, all-inclusive tool to enable safe prescribing and management of medicines in dentistry for dental practitioners.
As drug information constantly evolves, there was a need for a reliable source of drug information that was current and regularly updated. The team approached MIMS, as MIMS is Australia’s most widely used and comprehensive medicines information provider to healthcare professionals for over 60 years.
The impact
In a pilot study, Drugs4dent® and targeted education produced a 45 per cent reduction in inappropriate dental antibiotic prescribing.
Drugs4dent® is a clinical decision support tool for dentists. It has been successfully commercialised from Dr Leanne Teoh’s PhD research through a licence arrangement with MIMS Australia as MIMS Drugs4dent® and it is now available by subscription.
The support
Dr Teoh was the 2022 recipient of the Brian (BDSc 1949) and Ann Dooley bequest to enhance teaching and learning facilities and support students and early-career researchers.
Dr Teoh was also awarded a Dean’s Innovation Grant and the Early Career Researcher grant for this research from the University of Melbourne, as well as the Investigator grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council.
The team and partners
Dr Teoh’s PhD was supervised by Professor Michael McCullough at the Melbourne Dental School. In partnership with The University of Melbourne’s Research, Innovation & Commercialisation, the team worked closely with MIMS Australia to ensure optimal research translation success.
The future
MIMS Drugs4dent® was launched on 2 August 2024 at the Australian Dental Association Victorian Branch Conference and is now available from MIMS Australia via subscription across Australia and New Zealand.
Enquiries and more information:
Industry enquiries: industry-enquiries@unimelb.edu.au
Drugs4dent website: https://www.mimsdrugs4dent.com/
First published on 2 August 2024.
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