ISQua Specialist Certificate

• Define the risk of medication safety incidents associated with antibiotic use and over prescription (re: antimicrobial resistance).

• Describe medication errors associated with the use of beta-lactam antimicrobial and how to prevent them.

• Create a list of which antibiotics have highest risk.

• Learn the initiatives to reduce the problem.

• Understand where medication related harm occurs in primary care.
  
• Learn about improvement work that has taken place to make medicines safer in primary care.
  
• Learn about a system wide approach to medication reconciliation.
  
• Hear about good medicines management in GP Practices and Community Pharmacies to minimise harm.

• List the main risks for patients in the intensive care.
• Describe interventions that can be used to decrease medication harm.
• Consider the issues with medication reconciliation in the intensive care.
• Describe the challenges of polypharmacy in the intensive care.

• Articulate medication safety in mental health context.
• Describe strategies to improve medication safety in mental health.
• Describe the interventions that improve monitoring in mental health.

• Learn some strategies to handle high-risk medicines to improve medication safety.
• Describe how minimizing opportunities for errors with high-risk medicine can be dealt with at policy level (standards and policy directives, protocols, etc).
• Demonstrate how to develop error-reduction strategies around the use of high risk and high-alert medications.
• List the implications of opioid abuse.

Margaret Jordan,
MSc (Res), BPharm,
Advanced Practice Pharmacist,
FSHP, AACPA
Project Pharmacist- Pharmacy in the (General) Practice.

Judy Mullan,
PhD, FSHP, BA, BPharm,
Director at the Centre for Health Research Illawarra Shoalhaven Population (CHRISP),
Australian Health Services Research Institute (AHSRI), University of Wollongong, Australia.

• Different pharmacokinetics.
• Medications that increase risk.
• Polypharmacy.
• Consequences of medication harm.
• Falls confusion etc.
• How to address reducing falls and related injuries and medication contributors: drugs in the elderly, e.g., Beers list that contribute to falling in hospitals, nursing homes and at home.
• Strategies to reduce sleep aid drugs to reduce falls in the night in hospitals and nursing homes.

• Define medication reconciliation.
• Outline existing medication reconciliation tools.
• Outline the main benefits of medication reconciliation.
• Describe how medication reconciliation using information technology (IT) can improve medication safety.
• Share examples of typical barriers and problems with medication reconciliation and solutions developed.
• Describe the scale and nature of the problem of incomplete medication reconciliation at transitions of care.
• List the components of good practice to achieve successful reconciliation and communication at transitions of care.
• Gain an understanding of the types of interventions that can address and improve medication management at transitions, together with the evidence-base and economic case for their use.
• List mistakes taking place in the home setting.
• List the key strategies to manage transitions to a safe medication process in the home setting.
• Discuss benefits and challenges for using medication management solutions.
• Describe the infrastructure of leadership, accountability, and communication needed for improving medication safety across systems.

• Describe some examples of common medication safety interventions.
• Discuss the key issues in developing, evaluating and publishing interventions to enhance medication safety.

• Describe how smartphones can be used as a platform for tracking the medication.
• Outline the key benefits of using these innovative applications.
• Give examples of problems that can occur and how to create a safety net.

• Understand how dosing aids are used to improve medicine management for certain group of people.
• Be aware of the limitations associated with dose administration aids.
• Describe how to avoid problems with dose administration aids.
• Articulate how safer design of packaging, medication nomenclature, etc can improve medication safety.
• Describe approaches to facilitate and promote safe administration of medications.

• Describe at what stage of the medical process the medication error can occur and how this can be addressed with barcode medication administration.
• Give examples of standards for barcode medication.
• Describe the impact of medication barcode information through using an online platform to monitor and improve medication safety.
• Give examples of problems that need to be managed with use of bar codes.
• Discuss the importance of single unit barcoding.

• revealed sources of medication errors on hospital units.
• engages doctors, nurses and pharmacists to identify and solve contributing causes.
• identified unintended consequences from cost-reduction efforts.
• provides tools for conducting effective huddles.