Expertise and experience of Australia’s dynamic hospital pharmacy profession is crucial to success and sustainability Advanced Pharmacy Australia (AdPha) has welcomed the opening of consultation on a new pharmacy programs agreement to complement last year’s 8th Community Pharmacy Agreement (8CPA), reiterating the importance of Australian hospital and health service pharmacists as leaders in safe, innovative and evidence-based models of interdisciplinary pharmacy care.
Announced Friday morning by the Hon. Mark Butler MP, Minister for Health and Aged Care, the agreement will support the health and wellbeing of Australians through medication management reviews, First Nations programs, and rural workforce and training programs, and follow an independent review into the cost-effectiveness of current programs.
AdPha President Tom Simpson FANZCAP (Lead&Mgmt) says a patient-centred focus on evidence is native to Australian hospital pharmacy, the cradle of new models of pharmacy care.
‘Medicines management programs and primary care pharmacy services must be enhanced through the latest research and evidence and targeted to our most vulnerable Australians first and foremost, to maximise health outcomes for the community and keep people out of hospital wherever possible.
‘As Australia’s peak body of hospital pharmacy for more than 80 years, AdPha is the home of team-based pharmacy care that is led by the evidence. We look forward to helping shape pharmacy programs that better support the safe and effective care of older Australians, and improve medicines access for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.’
Mr Simpson says Australia’s pharmacy programs can be strengthened through the insight
of AdPha members who care for acutely unwell and at-risk Australians.
‘For decades AdPha members have forged new models of care in cost-constrained environments, in which their safety and efficacy, as well as their sustainability, must be proven in progressing from trial to pilot to program.
‘Our members bring valuable pharmacy expertise to the interdisciplinary teams providing care for the 250,000 Australians admitted to hospitals and 400,000 Australians presenting to emergency departments each year due to medication-related problems. With half of these preventable, better designed and more targeted pharmacy programs will reduce these costly hospital admissions and re-admissions.
‘Applying this knowledge of complex and transitional care models, which has accumulated in and around our hospitals, will ensure stronger pharmacy programs benefit more Australians.’
