Striving to Ensure Quality Use of Medicine in Primary Health Care in Remote Australia - Tobias Speare
APNA National Conference 2016 - Nurses | the heart of primary health care
Abstract Presentation - Speaker: Tobias Speare
Description:
Nurses form the backbone of primary care in rural and remote Australia, providing an expanding volume of services, especially in relation to chronic disease management. They practise at an advanced level often with limited or distant medical support. The extended scope of practice requires nurses in the remote context to have a broad knowledge base in disease management, including the administration, monitoring, supply and storage of medications. The extended scope of practice of nurses in the remote context, and the additional challenges this presents in ensuring QUM, highlights the need for advanced knowledge and skills management. The Centre for Remote Health provides a course in the practical use of medicines in disease management aimed at ensuring medicines are used appropriately, effectively, judiciously and safely, called Pharmacotherapeutics for Remote Area Nurses. The pharmacotherapeutics program is designed to assist RANs in developing knowledge and skills in the use of medications, the risks associated with them, and strategies to increase the benefits and minimise the risks of treatments. My vision for safe and high quality care in remote Australia involves a primary health care workforce that are highly educated and skilled in the management of medication within individual scope of practice.
Tobias Speare is the pharmacy academic at the Centre for Remote Health, a joint University Department of Rural Health of Flinders University and Charles Darwin University. Toby completed his pharmacy degree at James Cook University in Townsville, North Queensland, in 2004. Since this time, he has worked in a variety of pharmacy practice, including clinical pharmacy, retail pharmacy, education and mentoring, and program development, in rural, remote and metropolitan Australia and internationally, in New Zealand and Scotland.
