The Newfoundland and Labrador Deprescribing and Medication Appropriateness Initiative

Are your medications right for you?

The initiative is a partnership between the Department of Health and Community Services, Memorial University’s School of Pharmacy, and the University of Montreal (Canadian Deprescribing Network). The goal is to reduce the use of potentially inappropriate medications by increasing awareness of the overuse of these medications, improving ways of reducing them, and promoting meaningful conversations between healthcare providers and patients. We will focus initially on heartburn/reflux medications (proton pump inhibitors), then sleeping pills (sedative-hypnotics) in the second year, and then opioid pain killers in the third year.

The crux of the program is aimed at educating the public around the use of these medications and encouraging people to start the dialogue with their doctor or pharmacist to ask whether certain medications are still appropriate for them. We are trying to spread the message around appropriate medication use and reach as many people in NL as we can.

For further information please go to our website at www.safermedsnl.ca, follow us on Facebook at @SaferMedsNL or Twitter at @SaferMedsNL

2019-03-26