KEY attributes pharmacists need to work on-site embedded in aged care include resident-level clinical skills, effective interdisciplinary communication, and system-level quality use of medication skills, found a new study led by Dr Amanda Cross from Monash's Centre for Medicine Use and Safety.
The Government has committed $345.7m to embed an onsite pharmacist into every Government-funded residential aged care home within the next four years.
Dr Amanda Cross, and the national team of consultant pharmacist researchers known as COHERENT, qualitatively analysed free-text responses to questions from a national survey of over 500 Australian pharmacists.
This study represents the most comprehensive consultation regarding the on-site aged care pharmacist role with the general pharmacist workforce to date.
"Pharmacists are interested in the new role and excited for the opportunity to be more engaged and work with the multidisciplinary aged care team to improve quality use of medicines and improve resident outcomes," Cross said.
The study highlights four key factors influencing preparedness including familiarity with the aged care setting, resident-level clinical skills, ability to communicate and work with a multidisciplinary team, and experience with system-level quality use of medicines activities.
"The four factors represent key areas that education providers can target to better prepare our workforce to practice as on-site aged care pharmacists," said Cross.
In addition to interest and preparedness, the study highlights the importance of pharmacist workforce planning; education and training materials, guidelines, and mentor support for pharmacists moving into on-site pharmacist roles; and aged care stakeholder engagement.
Read the full paper HERE.
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