Otago University staff at the symposium (from left) Linda Bryant, Carlo Marra, Arlene McDowell, Stephen Duffull, Pauline Norris, Natalie Medlicott, Rakhee Raghunandan, Aynsley Peterson, Bruce Russell, Yasmin Abdul Aziz, Mohammed Saludeen, Hesham Al-Sallami and Daniel Wright. (Photo credit: Rewa Pene).
Work is continuing behind the scenes to develop an evidence plan resulting from this year's Forward Pharmacy symposium to drive the profession forward.
Organised by both the University of Otago's School of Pharmacy and the University of Auckland's School of Pharmacy, the symposium held in Wellington in April was designed to collect the right evidence to propel pharmacy forward.
“It set the scene that pharmacy needs to change in New Zealand,” Otago School of Pharmacy dean Carlo Marra says.
Now, a working group is gathering together information from a variety of speakers throughout the day-long symposium to produce an evidence plan to ideally push pharmacy's case for funding to support development of the profession.
Pharmacy has been slow to deliver clinically-based services and move from a product-based model to a patient-focused one, Professor Marra says.
While the reasons for this are complex, one of the impediments has been the lack of remuneration and the lack of irrefutable evidence for the value for money proposition for pharmacy innovations, he says.
Members of the working group developing the evidence plan are: Professor Marra, Jeff Harrison, head of Auckland University's School of Pharmacy; associate professor Natalie Medlicott and associate professor Bruce Russell, Otago School of Pharmacy; Graeme Smith, President Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand; Alesha Smith, senior lecturer Otago School of Pharmacy; Bob Buckingham, chief pharmacist adviser Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand; Ian McMichael, managing director Pharmacy 547; Angela Harwood, clinical pharmacist facilitator, WellSouth Primary Health Network and Ginny Brailsford, chair Canterbury Clinical Network.
Associate professor Medlicott says the group is planning a follow-up meeting to the symposium later this year.
Article written by Liane Topham-Kindley for Pharmacy Today, July 2017