HEALTH Minister Sussan Ley has confirmed the in-pharmacy Diabetes Screening Services trial will get under way in November, with about 360 metro, regional and rural pharmacies across Australia expected to take part (PD breaking news yesterday).
It's the first trial under the government's $50 million Pharmacy Trial program, with Ley saying it has been designed to test a variety of approaches to detecting diabetes in pharmacy.
The program will see patients use a validated AUDSRISK questionnaire to test for the risk of diabetes, as well as the use of further point of care tests to confirm whether the disease is present. "Patients will be referred to their general practitioner appropriately based on the outcomes of the questionnaire and tests," Ley said.
"The Pharmacy Trial Program represents a transformative opportunity for the pharmacy profession, enabling it to continue to build upon its existing dispensing role by trialling new approaches to providing primary care services," she added.
The government-funded trial is being conducted by the University of Sydney and Deakin University, in partnership with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia.
The Guild has welcomed the partnership program with more than 600 randomly-selected community pharmacies around Australia invited to register interest in the first screening trial.
Pharmacies are to be stratified by metro, regional and rural areas and invitations to express interest in participation will only be sought from those pharmacies randomly selected.
Following the registration of interest process, the trial will have a participation quota of 363 pharmacies across Australia and the trial is expected to commence next month.
Guild national president George Tambassis said, "We welcome this progress with the Pharmacy Trial Program.
"As Australia's most accessible health locations, community pharmacies are ideally placed for identifying individuals at high-risk of type 2 diabetes and screening them using recognised screening and risk assessment techniques."
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