THE Department of Health and Aged Care (DoHAC) has published the Handbook of tools to support medicine management in multimorbidity and polypharmacy, which was developed by the Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre at the University of South Australia.
In the context of an ageing population and increasing rates of chronic illness, the handbook aims to support health professionals manage concurrent use of medicines and reduce the risk of harm.
It provides examples of tools across the spectrum of factors where problems of medicine use can develop, and includes tools designed to: reduce medicine regimen complexity; identify non-adherence; identify medicines that are considered generally inappropriate in older people; identify medicines that may have been omitted but are considered beneficial in older people; detect medicine-related side effects; identify the potential for harms due to the cumulative effects of medicine use; support cessation of medicines; and support medication switching and tapering.
The handbook lists at least one tool for each of these areas, with tools developed for Australian practice included where possible.
While tools from other health jurisdictions have also been included, the authors stress they should be used with caution as medicines available elsewhere may not be available in Australia or may come in different strengths or formulations.
Conversely, there may be medicines available in Australia that are not available in other jurisdictions and so these medicines may not appear in the international tools described.
The handbook is available on the DoHAC website HERE.
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