Latest news with #prescribing
ABC News
6 days ago
- Health
- ABC News
'Ambitious' plan could see 80 per cent of pharmacists able to diagnose health conditions
As a prescribing pharmacist, Sam Turner is able to treat certain conditions and illnesses without his patients needing to visit a GP. In Queensland, the treatment of some conditions — including uncomplicated urinary tract infections, ear infections, acne, psoriasis, and school sores — can be managed by trained pharmacists after a pilot program was made permanent earlier this year. On Wednesday, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia announced its ambition to have 80 per cent of community pharmacists across the country able to offer additional services, including examining, diagnosing and treating health conditions by 2035. Mr Turner, who runs a community pharmacy in Brisbane, undertook a post graduate pharmacy prescribing course through James Cook University. "The training has not only improved my skills as a clinician but has also reshaped the way I approach most clinical conversations in the pharmacy," he said. "With those acute conditions — whether it's shingles, school sores or even mild to moderate eczema or psoriasis — a lot of patients come in and they need treatment straight away. "We're able to at least provide them with an immediate diagnosis and treatment and then referral if required." With the correct training, pharmacists are also able to prescribe hormonal contraception. The level of service a pharmacy can offer varies depending on the state and territory. Professor Trent Twomey, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia national president, would like to see more "harmonisation" across the country. "The Toward 2035 strategic plan involves turning Australia's 6,000 community pharmacies into primary healthcare hubs... saving the Australian healthcare system $5.1 billion annually," Professor Twomey said. He said internal modelling done by the guild suggested the changes would significantly ease pressures across health systems. In a statement, the guild said modelling showed its plan would free up 52,000 hours at emergency departments and save 6.5 million GP consultations. Professor Twomey says 75 per cent of Australians live within two-and-a-half kilometres of a pharmacy. "It makes sense that pharmacists step up, take on more clinical responsibilities to ease pressure on public hospitals and GP clinics across the country," he said. "These are common sense reforms where safe, affordable healthcare can be provided more easily and more effectively through more access points. Not all practitioners agree this approach will have the desired effect. Dr Michael Clements, the rural chair of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, is less than impressed. He said prescribing pharmacists in North Queensland — where it was first trialled — hadn't alleviated pressures on rural and regional general practitioners. "The promise or the hope was that [if] overrun GPs couldn't possibly squeeze in anybody, [a patient] that needed to urgently be seen could go next door to the pharmacy," Dr Clements said. "The only places this was offered has been in bigger city centres and in urban centres. In the pharmacies near me, it was only offered during [on weekdays] when a particular pharmacist might be rostered on." He said urgent care clinics and government incentives to get more doctors into general practice training meant the GP shortage was improving. "The main thing that's really impacting us as GPs is tidying up the messes when [patients] have seen a pharmacist and there's been a mistake," Dr Clements said. He said has seen multiple instances where a patient who had sought treatment at a pharmacy had been misdiagnosed, including one who was treated for a urinary tract infection but had a sexually transmitted infection. Dr Clements said in another case a patient was treated with steroid cream but had shingles. "When you teach people a small number of diseases and you give them a toolkit that only treats a small number of things, patients are at risk," he said. "[There's potential for] confirmation bias where the pharmacist chooses the wrong treatment because they haven't seen anything else before. They haven't had an apprenticeship and they haven't had supervision. Dr Clements said pharmacists' access to patients' medical history was limited. For instance, they can't test urine and blood, so they may misdiagnose a condition or miss something that is underlying. But the guild's Professor Twomey said the objectives of the plan weren't to replace GPs, but help free up doctors for more complicated cases. "It doesn't matter if Australians want to ask their GP, ask their pharmacist or ask their nurse, as long as the treatment they are being provided is in accordance with the same Australian therapeutic guidelines and the practitioner is treating them to the same level of care," he said. "Unfortunately there is enough sickness to go around. If we are able to achieve all our ambitions in this plan... it frees up our precious GPs to deal with those more complicated cases." Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls says the government has put $1.5 million into training subsidies to allow an additional 230 pharmacists to complete further training. He said the government had fulfilled its election commitment by making the treatment of a range of acute conditions from the pilot program a permanent service of prescribing pharmacists.
ABC News
21-07-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Prescriptions to be issued by WA pharmacists for asthma, ear infections under training program expansion
Pharmacists in Western Australia now have the opportunity to expand what they can prescribe in a bid to ease pressure on the state's health system. The WA government has announced the expansion of a pilot program offering further training for pharmacists, allowing them to diagnose and treat health conditions that would normally require people to visit a GP. The expanded pilot program will allow pharmacists to treat certain skin conditions, ear infections and asthma. Currently pharmacists can treat urinary tract infections, re-supply oral contraceptives and administer certain vaccines. WA Health Minister Meredith Hammat announced the program's expansion on Monday, saying it would provide people with more options to access health care. "By enhancing the skills of community pharmacists, we are reducing pressure on hospitals and GPs while giving patients safe, effective care options closer to home," Ms Hammat said in a statement. "GPs will continue to play a really important role in the healthcare system," she later told reporters on Monday. Ms Hammat said during consultation, the Australian Medical Association and the College of Royal General Practitioners had raised concerns about the program. "Our focus is on making sure the program is safe and effective," she said. The qualification will be issued by universities and is expected to take 12 months to complete, with graduates receiving a certificate in pharmaceutical prescribing.
Washington Post
17-07-2025
- Health
- Washington Post
Drugmaker telehealth deals risk unnecessary prescribing, Senate probe finds
Partnerships between telehealth companies and pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Eli Lilly raise concerns about conflicts of interest and inappropriate prescribing, according to a Senate investigation released Thursday. The report by offices of several Democratic senators said the arrangements appear intended to steer patients to medications manufactured by those companies, which maintain websites touting drugs and providing links directing them to doctors who can prescribe them.
ABC News
09-07-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Concern over medicinal cannabis prescribing
Isabella Higgins: The medical regulator is releasing new guidance for practitioners about the prescribing of medicinal cannabis. It comes after the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency found evidence that poor practices and surging patient demand is leading to significant patient harm. I spoke with National Health Reporter, Elise Worthington, a short time ago. Elise, first of all, what sort of problems has APHRA discovered with the prescribing and use of medicinal cannabis? Elise Worthington: Well, the number of Australians being prescribed medicinal cannabis has absolutely exploded in the past few years. And that's come about as medicinal cannabis telehealth companies have popped up, offering a really convenient, quick way for patients to get prescriptions after short online consultations. But the regulator is concerned that there's been a lack of due diligence by doctors who aren't taking proper medical histories and might be influenced by the companies they work for, which are also selling the products they're prescribing. So we've previously reported that APHRA has actually discovered more than half a dozen doctors have written over 10,000 medicinal cannabis scripts in a six month period. And they found one who'd written more than 17,000. So that equals about one every four minutes in a working day, which has really raised questions for them about how thoroughly patients are being screened. Now APHRA CEO, Justin Untersteiner said that has led to concerns about patient safety. Justin Untersteiner: We are concerned by reports of patients presenting to emergency departments with medicinal cannabis induced psychosis. We're also seeing evidence of over-servicing of patients, as well as ethical grey areas around cannabis only retail facilities. Some business models that have emerged in this area rely on prescribing a single product or a class of drug. And they use online questionnaires that we feel coach patients to say the right thing to justify prescribing medicinal cannabis. Isabella Higgins: That's APHRA's CEO, Justin Untersteiner. And Elise, has APHRA taken any action so far? Elise Worthington: Yes, so APHRA is working with other agencies like the Therapeutic Goods Administration. Now doctors have to report to the TGA, their medicinal cannabis prescriptions that they write. So APHRA is looking at the data and they have said today that they've taken action against 57 prescribers and they're now investigating another 60 doctors, pharmacists and nurse practitioners who can also prescribe medicinal cannabis. And they're really putting doctors working at these telehealth companies on notice that even if there's not a complaint from a patient, they will be asking questions about how they're writing so many scripts, checking their notes and medical records to ensure that patients are actually being properly assessed. Isabella Higgins: And what exactly is in this new guidance for practitioners in how they prescribe and what does APHRA hope they achieve? Elise Worthington: There's actually really strong evidence taking a step back that medicinal cannabis can really help with things like treating childhood epilepsy, muscle spasms, pain associated with multiple sclerosis and cancer, as well as chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. But interestingly, that is not the main conditions that it's being prescribed for in Australia. So we can see that it's mainly being prescribed for things like insomnia, anxiety and chronic pain. So the guidance is quite interesting in that it really clearly states that medicinal cannabis should never be prescribed as a first-line treatment because it's an unapproved therapy for most conditions, excluding some of those ones I mentioned earlier. But that also means that it's not checked for safety, quality or efficacy by the TGA. And the guidelines state that there's not good evidence showing that it works for a lot of other conditions and patients need to be explicitly informed of that when they're being prescribed it. Isabella Higgins: Elise Worthington reporting.
Medscape
20-06-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Medscape Poll: Exercise Prescriptions
In this brief survey, Medscape would like to hear about your approach to prescribing exercise to patients.
