Name: More than Drugs and Dispensers
Uploaded: 2022-07-29T07:11:50.411Z
Description: Julian is a Senior Pharmacist in Palliative Care with SA Health and an On-Site Aged Care Pharmacist at Tanunda Lutheran Home. He spoke on the Residential Aged Care Panel at the eMedication Management conference this year and following on from that we took the chance to discuss his role, challenges, and changes to the systems in his facility.

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Julian Soriano - More than Drugs and Dispensers.vtt

More than Drugs and Dispensers

Role as an onsite aged care pharmacist
is really varied day to day and other

health professionals listen to this
on sand that when you're dealing with

patients and do the general public,
no, no days are similar in your

As an onset pharmacist is I'm
responsible for the medication

management at UND blue and home, which
is a nursing home I'm working at.

And as well as being a key part of the,
the clinical team and that clinical

team involves the nursing staff, the
allied health that's there, the GPS,

As well as the support stuff, like
people like the lifestyle team.

So being part of this team means
that I'm invited and involved

And these are meetings where we will
discuss our current residents who

are at risk or are having particular
issues as the present as well as look

So looking at things like incident
reviews and how some of our systems

are are operating as a pharmacist,
I get a fairly unique insight into

These meetings coming at it from a,
a medications point of view sometimes

Some of the issues we discuss,
so things like falls, delirium

and pain are big areas that a
pharmacist knowledge is quite handy.

In those meetings also do a lot
of work with the visiting GPS.

So we have a GP visit almost each
day which we're quite lucky to have.

I get to catch up with
them when they arrive.

And then when they're leaving to sort of.

Some of our current residents discuss
some of the changes that might have

been made and then communicate these
changes to family members and residents

We also do case conferencing which
is a fairly unique thing to have

And the case conferencing will involve
the entire care team members family

members of residents and residents
themselves as well as the GP.

And these have been really
successful to get some really

So pharmacists, we, we like auditing,
but a lot of auditing to make sure that

medications are used correctly are used
safely as well as doing some stewardship

work around things like antipsychotics
and sedative medications to make sure

that they're used optimally and not
used for too long and, and patient

There were so many interesting and
important presentations at medicines.

Some of the things that really stood
out to me was using data quickly.

I think the term was coined as fast data.

Something that has been a little bit of
a frustration of mine is getting access

So I was really interested to see people
speaking of this concept and sort of some

The other part that I really
enjoyed and really thought was

So a lot of people spoke about programs
or services they've done to educate

their staff on how to use some of the
technology and some of the really big

benefits from optimizing and using the,
the technology and the programs and

software that they have available to them.

Improvements in practice efficiency,
medicine, safety a whole, a whole

And it was really heartening to see
in some of the work that, that some

of the big organizations like the
digital health agency are doing,

particularly around things like
interoperability of systems which has

We faced a number of barriers
when we started implementing and

changing our AE medication systems
at our facility, one of these were

It was really important for us to
establish a baseline of our staff.

Members' it literacy and needing
to upscale some of our staff to be

able to use some of the very basic
functions of how to use a computer.

A lot of these programs, we rolled out
over COVID, which in hindsight, maybe

wasn't the greatest idea, but also maybe
was a great idea because it's enabled us

to do some great things remotely, but we
looked to implement a lot of our systems

over zoom and finding out that a lot of
our staff members had never used zoom.

Maybe didn't have the facilities
at home available to use.

And we, we spent quite a
bit of time bringing out.

All of our staff members up to a
particular standard where they were able

to use this technology comfortably and
then education about the, the new software

and programs themselves was another really
important barrier that took quite a while.

But we did, we did a very
thorough job of it, I think.

And I think the rewards for that
have been, have paid off quite well.

Another challenge that I found
really challenging was trying to help

shift staff's mindset and workflow
away away from paper based tools.

I think a lot of staff members expected
the new E medication charts to be an exact

replica and the exact same workflow as
the paper tools that they currently had.

Whereas I think that's a bit of
a full errand if we try and chase

that, cuz the paper's probably
always gonna win in that situation.

So it was important to try and help staff
to, to reframe and rethink about how they.

Particularly these medication charts
and it's not just a paper tool and

trying to help them focus on some of
the other benefits that an electronic

system has things around reporting and
transparency and, and the time saving

ability of not needing to go find charts,
having them all in the same place.

So helping staff to sort of change
workflow and mindset was another

really big, almost cultural shift that
we had to sort of gradually improve.

But I think we'd gotten there which
was, which was really positive.

And the last big barrier I
think we really faced was the

Unfortunately the systems we had
didn't really talk with each other.

Which meant represcribed a whole heap
of new medication chart and setting

Julian is a Senior Pharmacist in Palliative Care with SA Health and an On-Site Aged Care Pharmacist at Tanunda Lutheran Home. 

He spoke on the Residential Aged Care Panel at the eMedication Management conference this year and following on from that we took the chance to discuss his role, challenges, and changes to the systems in his facility.