Medicines safety in Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs)

Medicines safety in Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs)

One of the challenges for GPs working in residential aged care is the process of prescription and medicines management for their patients. The ordering and supply of medicines to RACF residents from external GPs and pharmacists creates a number of inefficiencies and risks to patient safety. Some RACFs use a form of the National Residential Medication Chart to manage patient medicines and these include information on:

• medicines prescribed, dispensed and administered
• patient allergies and adverse reactions
• any special needs, such as difficulty swallowing or cognitive impairment
• prescription due dates.

The benefits of the National Residential Medication Chart include:

• improving patient safety by reducing medicines errors and preventing adverse medicine interactions
• supporting communication between everyone involved in a patient’s care
• continuity of medicines
• making prescribing and dispensing easier and more efficient (in particular reducing the need for prescriptions to be written in addition to writing on the medication chart).

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety recommended ‘universal adoption by the aged care sector of digital technology and My Health Record’. To support this recommendation, the Department of Health and Aged Care are supporting RACFs to transition to an electronic National Residential Medication Chart (eNRMC). The roll out of the eNRMC will reduce the administrative burden and the risk of medicines errors by connecting RACFs with prescribers and pharmacists in real time, resulting in greater efficiencies and enhanced medicines safety including:

• clinical decision support tools such as alerts and reminders regarding allergies, medicines interactions and prescription due dates
• streamlined access to patient details for prescribers and dispensers
• support for all health care professionals to better understand a patient’s medicines history and individual care needs
• improved privacy and security for patients
• increased efficiency in medicines reporting, auditing and reconciliation
• reduce the need for prescribers to write prescriptions