Explore our resources
The Indigenous Medication Review Service Feasibility Study has a number of resources available.
Stage 1 MMR training
Stage 1 Medication Management Review online training available now
Our Stage 1 Medication Management Review component of the IMeRSe Study has been accredited by the Australian Association of Consultant Pharmacists and is now available to you.
If you want to complete Stage 1 MMR training between now and November 2019 you will need to complete each of the following steps:
- Online MMR training module AVAILABLE NOW
- 1-day IMeRSe training workshop and pre-work (you’ve completed this already)
- Attend two webinars, the first in February and the second later in 2019
- Complete all related assessment embedded into training.
Save the date – February 6 2019
As part of our ongoing support, we are going to run some webinars in the new year that give you an opportunity to connect with other pharmacists delivering the service to talk about what is working well and troubleshoot any challenges.
Opportunity to catch up with IMeRSe pharmacists and swap tips for success
The IMeRSe team is holding a short webinar for all of the IMeRSe pharmacists and staff to meet (virtually) and talk about what is working well and what has been more challenging. Take advantage of this great networking opportunity to talk to other pharmacists delivering the service.
Our fabulous mentor Michelle Bowden will lead the webinar and you can come for a 30-minute check-in, or for 1.5 hours for the more in-depth case discussion. We will discuss a case after the check-in. All are welcome even if you feel that you have not done many Medicines Talks.
If you are considering completing the requirements for Stage 1 HMR and RMMR training then you need to attend the entire Webinar.
Helpful tips
Somer’s great mentor recruitment tip – building relationships and opportunities
We all know that new services can take time to build momentum and that they rely on our relationships with patients and other health professionals.
If you have a strong partnership with the Aboriginal Health or Medical service (AMS), they are more likely to develop a trusting relationship with you and are therefore more likely to refer their clients or patients to you.
Some AMS health professionals can be reluctant to refer people to new allied health services that they do not know or trust themselves. This is because they have had to develop a relationship with the patient and the patient trusts them and the health professional does not want to risk a negative experience to jeopardise that relationship. It also goes along way at the point of referral if the AMS health professional is able to provide some information about the pharmacist to initiate rapport at the outset.
You as the pharmacist may already know or come to know that Indigenous healthcare is fundamentally opportunistic. What we mean by this, is while we have a patient with us, we take the opportunity to engage in a number of health management and health promotion initiatives as we can without overwhelming the patient. This is because of the number of social, political, economic and historical factors that contribute to access barriers for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
So what we tend to do is, while an individual or family are at the AMS for their presenting problem, we take the opportunity to assess their needs and refer them to other services or the multidisciplinary team at the time. I have found in my experiences across a number of contexts that when I am seeing a patient, there have been some great health outcomes when I have been able to walk the patient to the next room to introduce them to a specialist, physio, diabetes educator, dietitian and so on. This could also apply to the pharmacist.
Therefore, having a flexible pharmacist walk in session in conjunction or separate from your scheduled Medicine Talk appointments might be a great way to initiate patient engagement as well as strengthen your relationship with the AMS staff as a whole allowing you to become part of the "team" and connect with the community at varying levels.
We know that some pharmacists are regularly going to sit in the health services and be there to offer advice on medicines in general as a way of becoming known by all. The IMeRSe pharmacy administration fee was in part set up to allow for these sorts of activities whilst the service gained momentum.
Michelle’s great mentor clinical tip of the week
Constructing your Medicines Report
When developing your Medicines Report Action Plan, using just ONE recommendation per ‘New Action’ entry makes it easier for the GP to respond. For example, if one ‘New Action’ entry contains several different recommendations that may require different responses from the GP, the Guildcare IMeRSe software program only allows ONE response for the entire recommendation: ‘accepted’, ‘declined’ or ‘alternative suggested’. Think about separating different recommendations to make it easier for the GP to follow and respond with ease. This might not always be possible (or sensible) so remember to use your well-developed judgement and self-reflection!
IMeRSe service tip of the week – Pharmacists follow-ups
We have heard that pharmacists are checking in and providing great follow-ups for their patients participating in the IMeRSe service. When you do this please use Follow-up tab in the online IMeRSe GuildCare module. Recording follow-ups gives a clear picture to everyone (Aboriginal Health Worker, GP and pharmacist) of how the person is travelling. It is also important so that we know which level service was required and for service payment back to the pharmacy.
When you schedule or complete an opportunistic follow-up click on the follow-up tab, record the date and time for the appointment and save it, then go back into that follow-up to record the details.
See p40 to 44 of the Pharmacy Standard Operating Procedure manual for screenshots of how to do this.