Description
BackgroundGeneral practice should be a hub of clinical excellence for high quality medication management in primary care. Safe, accurate and effective use of medication in general practice relies heavily on constant unwavering attention of doctors. There is limited and inadequate decision support from current prescribing software. Errors of omission, commission and monitoring are a common cause of patient harm.
Aims
To develop and test a comprehensive Medication Governance System for Australian General Practice.
Method
Data extracted from general practice clinics was automatically coded to combine laboratory monitoring, lifestyle details, demographics, medications and medical history.
Literature review, expert reference group and review of existing alerting systems allowed us to focus on deficiencies in current computer decision support.
Systems were designed to be able to provide both ‘intelligent’ alerts at the time of prescribing and population health reports for targeted action.
Results
Primary Sense was able to provide alerts related to genomics, physical measures, patient demographics, lifestyle, renal function trends, monitoring requirements, co-morbidities, co-prescribing requirements and deprescribing opportunities.
Alerts were individualised and presented at the time of prescribing. Alerts included access to relevant doctor and patient information. Reports enabled general practice clinics to recall patients when there was a change in clinical status that impacted medication safety.
Conclusion
A comprehensive computerised Medication Governance System is both feasible and necessary to establish excellence in medication management in Australian general practice.
| Period | 12 Oct 2018 |
|---|---|
| Event title | GP18: The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Conference: The Centre of Health in Australia |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Gold Coast, Australia, Queensland |
| Degree of Recognition | National |