Spectrum Care wins unprecedented Health Excellence Award

8 December 2016

Spectrum Care wins unprecedented Health Excellence Award

Spectrum Care’s Specialist Support Clinical Team was presented with an unprecedented 'Chief Executive Award' at the recent Auckland District Health Board ‘Health Excellence Awards’ with their project Reaching out beyond hospital walls: Optimising medicines for people with intellectual disability.

The project team comprised Clinical Pharmacist Adele Print, Strategic Project Manager and Clinical Advisor Judy Garriock, Clinical Nurse Specialist Ingrid Moody, ADHB Clinical Lead Pharmacist Joe Monkhouse, ADHB Chief Pharmacist Ian Costello and Dr Anecita Lim.

People with intellectual disability commonly have multiple and complex long-term health needs, and are significantly more at risk of disease, ill health and early death than the general population.

In 2015, Spectrum Care – an independent charitable trust that supports people with disabilities – identified that 49 per cent of the people accessing its adult residential services were taking six or more medicines every day and were at risk of medicine-related problems.

In response, Spectrum partnered with the Auckland DHB Pharmacy Department to set up an innovative and collaborative review service to optimise people’s medicines. Previously, medicines reviews by specialist hospital pharmacists were available only to inpatients.

The Spectrum team developed an individualised assessment tool to prioritise those who require a health and medicines review, and a clinical pharmacist has now completed 12 months of medication reviews for people identified as being high risk. The pharmacist identified real or potential medicine-related problems and recommended a number of medicine changes to the GP.

• Click here for the award video

The Auckland District Health Board’s Health Excellence Awards aim to highlight examples of excellence that make a difference to the health and experience of its patients and community. The prestigious ‘Chief Executive Award’ is selected from all applications in all categories, and is awarded to the project that demonstrates the most commitment to a true and equal partnership between patients, families and communities by involving them in the design and delivery of improvements.

ENDS

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