S2E11 - Is it a true penicillin allergy? How penicillin allergy de-labelling is making care safer and more effective – featuring Dr. Tiffany Wong

Approximately 10% of the population (which translates to around 500,000 people in BC) believes they have a penicillin allergy and are labelled as such in their patient records, but in reality, more that 90% of these patients do not have a true penicillin allergy.  These false penicillin allergy labels can have serious consequences to both individual patients and the system; a false allergy label can lead to the use of an alternative antibiotic, which may have increased side effects, increased costs, and can lead to antibiotic resistance. Proactively ‘de-labelling’ patients that have an inaccurate penicillin allergy label can help avoid these risks. Dr. Tiffa...