A new University of Queensland Centre opening tomorrow will tackle the lack of an agreed set of compliances for all health practitioners with prescribing authority.
“Both medical and non-medical practitioners currently write prescriptions for patients and there may be more prescribing professions in future,” according to Associate Professor Charles Mitchell.
Dr Mitchell is Director of UQ’s Centre for Safe and Effective Prescribing, within UQ’s School of Pharmacy.
The Centre opens tomorrow at the Pharmacy Australia Centre of Excellence (PACE) at 20 Cornwall Street, Woolloongabba.
He said currently, there was no agreed set of compliances, which needed to be developed and endorsed by an appropriate Australian authority.
Current prescribers include doctors, nurse practitioners, optometrists, dentists, physician assistants and other allied health professionals. More than 250 million prescriptions a year are filled in Australia.
“Prescribing as a skill is not given the due attention it would be say, compared to medical procedures,” Dr Mitchell said.
“If a surgeon takes out an appendix, he or she needs to operate with a high level of skills and to an agreed set of competencies.
"The same high standards should apply to prescribing, and the discrepancy between prescribing and procedural differences needs to be addressed.”
Dr Mitchell said the Centre for Safe and Effective Prescribing aimed to improve medication safety through education and training programs, informed by translational research, to prescribers and consumers.
It would foster, develop and implement best practice in safe and effective prescribing for all health practitioners with prescribing authority.
The Centre would have a research role in quality use of medicines, safe and effective prescribing and patient medication and experience, and an education role involving undergraduates, postgraduates and postgraduate vocational programs.
“The Centre will also act in an advocacy and consulting role for the formulation of policy, at all levels of government, on the safe and effective prescribing of medicines,” he said.
“We’re looking to partner with a range of State and national groups who by themselves may not have sufficient resources to develop necessary materials, but as a collective we can effect efficiencies in development time and costs.”
Head of the UQ School of Pharmacy Professor Nick Shaw said he was delighted at the formation of the Centre, which recognised the important roles of pharmacists in the prescribing process and the quality use of medicines.
UQ Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Max Lu welcomed the Centre as an important initiative which would lead to better outcomes for patients and clinicians.
Media: Associate Professor Charles Mitchell at 334 61989, Bis Parry at 0404 266 125 or Jan King at 0413 601 248.
