QEII’s Pharmacy Department is leading the way on empowering safe and sustainable use of medicines, after teaming up with Advanced Pharmacy Australia (AdPha) and the Australian Deprescribing Network (ADeN) to spotlight MedsAware: Deprescribing Action Week (10-16 March).
As QEII moves toward a more sustainable future, Senior Pharmacist Elita Chan says the campaign sparks important conversations around medication safety and a greener approach to care in the hospital setting.
“Medicines can have important benefits in curing and preventing diseases and improving symptoms. However, the potential benefits and harms of medicines can change over time as a person ages, acquires new medical conditions, takes new medicines and changes their care goals. Therefore, medicines should be regularly reviewed to make sure that they are still of benefit, and not causing any harm,” she explained.
As part of the Deprescribing Action Week, QEII Pharmacy is getting actively involved by:
- driving conversations around discontinuing medicines that are no longer required, or for which the risk of harm outweighs the benefits.
- raising awareness around ‘polypharmacy’ and ‘deprescribing’ empowering QEII hospital teams and consumers and their carers on how to manage every medicines’ regimen ensuring it is current, effective and safe.
Deprescribing is the planned process of discontinuing medicines that are no longer required, especially in the presence of polypharmacy (generally >5 medications).
Elita says deprescribing not only improves medication safety and patient care, but importantly contributes to a more sustainable planet.
“With two-thirds of Australia’s healthcare emissions coming from hospitals and medicines, safe and sustainable medicine use can significantly reduce the environmental impact as well as reducing cases of preventable hospitalisations,” she explained.
“We want to empower more conversations about the power of deprescribing,” said Elita.
Special thanks to the Deprescribing working group: Natalie Tasker, Heidi Wong, Vivien Banks, Phil Day, Deepali Gupta and Elita Chan.