Opinion: Advanced pharmacy is not revolutionary, it’s evolutionary

As the most common healthcare intervention, medicines are crucial to all aspects of Australians’ health.

Medicines prevent and mitigate sickness, make stays in hospital shorter and more comfortable, expedite recovery and support lifelong wellbeing for those living with a range of chronic diseases.

But medicines are complex, costly to supply and procure, and even costlier when mismanaged.

The unique skill and expertise of pharmacy professionals is essential to maximise the positive benefits of this crucial frontline care.

Over the past few months, members of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia (SHPA) have been engaged in consultation to ensure our inclusive and evolving identity and mission meets the future needs of Australian patients, carers and consumers within our future healthcare system.

We know there are challenges — too many Australians are being hospitalised and harmed each year for preventable, medicines-related issues. Medicines are increasingly complex and being taken more regularly by more people as the population ages.

What we have proposed to our members and the broader industry is a future-state for the profession achievable through ‘advanced pharmacy’.

Advanced pharmacy facilitates the evidence-based pillars of hospital pharmacy — including specialty roles in collaborative, team-based care; deprescribing; and pharmacist-led stewardship programs — outside the four walls of the hospital. It reimagines the boundaries of Australian pharmacy to effect meaningful change, ensuring specialty pharmacy expertise can be fully harnessed for the benefit of patients everywhere.

Advanced pharmacy is not a revolutionary concept, it is evolutionary and, in fact, has a strong history here in Australia.

The Advanced Pharmacy Practice Framework was released in 2012, endorsed by the Pharmacy Board of Australia, defining scope of practice and prerequisite competencies for Australian practitioners to assist the development of the profession to meet the changing healthcare needs of the community.

This framework was subsequently embedded into national pharmacy competency standards and formed the academic basis of the Australian and New Zealand College of Advanced Pharmacy (ANZCAP) launched last year.

At a time when we need professionals working at the top of their scope of practice, advanced pharmacy recognises the skills, knowledge and experience of the professionals our organisation has always represented — pharmacists and technicians practising as part of multidisciplinary teams to deliver best practice medicines management to patients around the country, within and beyond hospital settings.

We are seeing see this in our profession already through the GP pharmacists working alongside our medical colleagues to reduce waiting times and improve timely access to medicines for patients...

Through Aged Care On-Site Pharmacists who work with the healthcare team to improve medication use including safe and appropriate use of high-risk medicines for some of our most vulnerable patients...

And through pharmacist-led prescribing models such as partnered pharmacist medication charting (PPMC), which has proven to reduce medication errors, length of stay and hospital costs for our patients who are at their most unwell.

The role of pharmacists in delivering a strong and resilient healthcare model has never been more important than it is today.

We believe advanced pharmacy is the conduit to a better future-state for pharmacy in Australia...

A workforce that is more inclusive, connected and collaborative...

A health system in which pharmacists and technicians are fully integrated into interdisciplinary care teams, where their medicines expertise is indispensable...

And most importantly, a pharmacy profession that meets the needs of each Australian, regardless of their place, their care setting or vulnerabilities.

Image credit: iStock.com/MJ_Prototype