HOMEFREE: Helping children switch from IV to oral antibiotics, getting them home sooner
Dr McMullan is the current Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Paediatric Infectious Diseases Group (ANZPID).
Image source: Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation.
Every day, children are admitted to hospital for treatment of infections. Many of these children are treated in hospital for longer than necessary, often because they are receiving intravenous (IV) antibiotics.
Dr Brendan McMullan is the lead investigator of the HOMEFREE program. HOMEFREE is being undertaken in six hospitals of different sizes across metropolitan and rural areas in NSW and aims to help children switch from IV to oral antibiotics, getting them home sooner.
It is hoped that this tailored program, based on scaling up successful pilot research, will significantly reduce hospital stays, improve quality of antibiotic use, decrease costs of care and deliver greater quality of life for children with infections in hospital in NSW and beyond.
To read more and hear Dr McMullan talk about the program see https://www.schf.org.au/blog/homefree