Seniors Quality Use of Medicines: Encouraging Seniors to Get to Know Their Medicines and Enjoy Better Health - The Queensland Experience
Council on the Ageing Queensland Inc (COTAQ) and the National Prescribing Service Ltd (NPS) have teamed up to urge senior Australians to get to know their medicines in an effort to help reduce the number of medicine mix-ups.
Australians aged 65 years and over are the greatest users of medicines and are at greatest risk of medicines problems. At any one time more than 86% of seniors are taking medicines1 and every year approximately 140 000 hospital admissions may be related to medicines mishaps.2
In an effort to address these issues and assist senior Australians to manage their medicines better, COTAQ is taking part in a national Seniors Quality Use of Medicines program by offering interactive information sessions about medicines for seniors organisations and groups. These sessions are facilitated by volunteer peer educators and aim to help people talk with their doctor or pharmacist to better understand and learn about their medicines.
This presentation will cover:
• What are some of the common beliefs and behaviours of seniors with regard to medicines?
• What is the essence of this program? What makes it different?
• Who are the seniors groups reached and how are sessions organized?
• How do peer educators engage with group members? How do they get the ‘active medicines partner’ message across?
• Some feedback snippets.
1 Australian Bureau of Statistics. National Health Survey: Use of medications (4377.0) 1995, Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 1999.
2 Australian Council for Safety and Quality in Health Care. Second National Report on Patient Safety Improving Medication Safety, Canberra: Australian Council for Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2002.