A new project supporting safer use of medicines in residential aged care aims to develop a national system of routinely collected data on medicines use and safety, with the hope of developing an electronic platform in future.
The Pharmacists Actioning Rational use of Medicines in Aged Care (PHARMA-Care) quality monitoring project will leverage South Australia’s Registry of Senior Australians (ROSA) datasets, along with digital medication management platform Medi-Map, and Ward Medication Management’s quality use of medicines (QUM) reporting and benchmarking tool.
Project lead Janet Sluggett, a pharmacist and fellow in public health and allied health at the University of South Australia, said the project will develop, test and cost a nationally scalable system that will leverage routinely collected data to provide an ongoing snapshot of medicines use and safety for care providers, consumers and policy makers.
“We’ll provide a baseline evaluation to inform aged care policy and planning, and to help pharmacists and aged care teams to see what is working well and identify if improvements in medicines use are possible,” Dr Sluggett said.
“By drawing on data from these three sources we will be able to gain a wider understanding of current medication management practices and provide quality measures that can be monitored using different mechanisms.”
Dr Slugget said the project would involve collaboration with Medi-Map, Ward Medication Management and ROSA, with routinely collected data from these platforms analysed as part of the project to minimise manual data collection by pharmacists and aged care providers.
“Together, these activities will help us to develop a framework that maps the priority areas for monitoring and action in aged care homes,” she said.“The project will lay the groundwork for a future electronic platform.”
The four-year PHARMA-Care project, due to start in June, also involves the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, Flinders University, University of Tasmania, Macquarie University, Curtin University, professional societies, clinicians, consumers, and SA aged care provider Eldercare.
It is being funded to the tune of $1.5 million through the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).
Medi-Map CEO Greg Garratt said that as a medicine management platform, Medi-Map could provide approved providers with access for reporting, monitoring and medicine reviews.
“This is based on residential aged care facility and patient permission but allows accurate report development and then recommendations to the health providers – being prescribers, nurses and pharmacists – to assist with managing optimised medicine care for residents,” Mr Garrett said.
“Collaborative care can make a significant difference in long term medicine outcomes for residents.”
Dr Sluggett said residents of aged care homes took an average of 10 different medicines every day and while medication could be beneficial, they were also at risk of harm from their medicines.
“Medication management is the most frequent reason for residential care complaints to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission,” she said. “Strategies to improve the use of medicines in residential aged care homes are needed.”
While originally the hope was that the PHARMA-Care program would provide information to inform the Coalition government’s $350 million on-site pharmacist in aged care homes program, announced in 2022, that project is now in doubt, with services instead to be provided by community pharmacies.
