In March 2022, the Australia government announced $350 million of funding over 4 years to employ on-site pharmacists in residential aged care, starting July 2023. In April 2023, the government made changes to the proposed on-site pharmacists, where the new program will now be delivered by and through community pharmacies. Regardless of how the model will be implemented, the goal remains the same – to improve quality use of medicines and medicines safety for aged care residents.
While it is relatively easy for pharmacists to monitor and manage some types of medicine harms (e.g., due to use of inappropriate medicines), many medicines can cause “milder” harms (e.g., poor balance, sedation) that are difficult to detect without the right tools. Left unmanaged, these “milder” harms can lead to serious adverse events such as injurious falls, according to Pharmacist Julian Soriano talking to Australian Health Journal.
In a joint project between UniSA, Tanunda Luteran Home, Flinders University and UNSW, a digital solution has been used to create an evidence-based, medicines use model to assist pharmacists (on-site aged care or community pharmacists) with actively monitoring medicine harms.
An interdisciplinary team at the University of South Australia (UniSA), University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Flinders University is currently implementing the TeleClinical Care (TCC) platform incorporating data from a suite of digital technologies to enable pharmacist at the Tanunda Lutheran Home (where Julian Soriano works) to actively monitor their aged care residents.
The ARIIA funded project is being conducted in two phases:
i) Phase 1 involves developing protocol to extract data from digital technologies (e.g. activity trackers, sleep tracking mats) into the TCC platform. The core of the existing TCC platform is a dashboard that includes longitudinal visualisations of changes in residents’ health and well-being over time. Other existing data sources collected in residential aged care will be uploaded to the dashboard, including medicine use (e.g. medicine changes, sedative load), clinical care record (e.g. bowel movement) and adverse events (e.g. falls, hospital admission).
ii) Phase 2 involves a pre-post implementation study over 12-weeks, with 30 residents recruited from the Tanunda Lutheran Home. The selected digital technologies will first be installed for all enrolled residents who provided written consent. Enrolled residents will also be asked to use an activity tracker. Prior to service provision, two weeks’ baseline data will be collected from the digital technologies; the data will serve as reference point for future changes. Pharmacists will monitor all participants using the centralised TCC dashboard.
As Soriano states, “A platform like this is going to make that job much more streamlined. And the use of sensors such as a sleep tracker and activity tracker is also going to help provide the pharmacist with more information to be able to make more informed decisions, more informed recommendations for residents, their families and their treating GPs.”
The current workforce challenges in aged care are not forgotten and Soriano expresses hope, that “this platform won’t increase the burden on residents and the staff there in terms of gathering this information. Hopefully this will be quite streamlined and automatic and there won’t be a real big service change for the already overworked nurses and residents living in aged care would just be able to live and not have to worry constantly about being poked and prodded.”
-
Physiotherapist, exercise physiologist support for management of osteoporosis
Osteoporosis is commonly managed medically and typically with treatment. Exercise is also essential in the management of osteoporosis but tends to be under-utilised due to lack of knowledge and unfounded concerns about the risk of injury. In fact, optimal care of people with low bone mass, osteoporosis and/or increased risk of falling can and should include targeted exercise to help prevent osteoporotic fracture.
In early 2024, Healthy Bones Australia released a summary of the principles of osteogenic loading and fall prevention, the translation of those principles into clinical practice, evidence-based recommendations for exercise prescription, and special considerations, along with links to several relevant resources for people with or at risk of osteoporosis, falls and fractures.
-
Pharmacist Prescribing Model gets further support from state health
A full scope pharmacist prescriber model allows pharmacists to independently prescribe medicines within their professional competence, without requiring prior doctor authorisation. It extends pharmacists’ role beyond dispensing to include assessment, diagnosis of minor and chronic conditions, initiation and modification of therapy, and ongoing patient monitoring. This model integrates pharmacists into primary care teams, aiming to improve timely access to treatment, reduce pressure on general practitioners, and enhance continuity of care. Pharmacists use their clinical knowledge, patient records, and collaborative pathways to ensure safe prescribing. The model emphasises training, regulation, and accountability to maintain high standards of patient safety.
-
Continuing education program leads to better conversations
Medicines Australia’s Continuing Education Program (CEP) is designed to educate medical representatives to a recognised industry standard. Dr Tristan Ling, CEP Academic Lead and Project Manager at the College of Health and Medicine, University of Tasmania talks about the 900 students that come through the program each year.
The CEP is primarily directed at medical representatives working within the prescription medicines industry, but is also recommended to people who may not be currently employed within the industry but would like to pursue a career as a medical representative. It is also available to personnel working for organisations interacting with the pharmaceutical industry.
