Research highlights the role of technology in medication safety

With medication safety an ongoing concern for the aged care sector, a new project led by Macquarie University will demonstrate how sophisticated and user-friendly IT systems can improve the management of medication and support staff and residents.

Professor Johanna Westbrook, Director of the Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, has been awarded $992,386 from the National Health and Medical Research Council Medical Research Future Fund to lead this project.

“Poor medication management is a critical problem in aged care, and one that has proved difficult to solve,” Westbrook said. Research presented to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety has previously shown, for example, that 65% of residents on antipsychotics used them for longer than guideline recommendations.

This is a two-year project to demonstrate how IT systems with sophisticated data processing can improve medication management. This innovation will support the monitoring of medication, guide decision-making, reduce the workload of aged care staff and provide real-time information to residents and their families.

The large-scale data generated will also produce new evidence of variation in medication indicators across the country and a national atlas of medication use in residential aged care.

The project will work in close partnership with BESTMED’s existing medication management system used across Australia in more than 500 residential aged care facilities and by pharmacists and general practitioners caring for over 58,000 patients.

“We are pleased to be partnering with BESTMED as crucially, this project recognises the need to reduce the workload burden on the aged care workforce through solutions that are practical and scalable and will work in the real world,” Westbrook said.

The chief investigator team from Macquarie University, Deakin University, University of Sydney, University of Western Australia, Bond University and Monash University will undertake research in partnership with BESTMED, the Aged Care Industry IT Council, Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, Consumers Health Forum of Australia, Western Sydney Local Health District, Melbourne Health, Southern Cross Care and Bupa Aged Care.

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