NPS Member update
Wednesday 18 July 2007
1. Stakeholder Reference Groups: have your say
2. Board
endorses plans and budget
3. Workplace
change underway
4. NPS thanks
common colds need common sense campaign volunteers
5. Medicines
awareness campaign starts soon
6. Aboriginal
health worker training in
7. NPS eyes
off nurses
8. NPS
Facilitators seek 'Identity and
9.
Pharmacists sign up for BP audit
10. NPS pops
media pills
11. RADAR homes in on vaccines
12. The
latest Australian Prescriber
available soon
13. Winter Medicines Talk starts soon
Two
Stakeholder Reference Group meetings (SRGs) on Quality Use of Medicines (QUM)
in Acute Care, and Population Health have been held in the past two months.
The June 26
meeting in
At each
meeting, a list of priority areas was identified to help NPS planning.
Three more
SRG meetings are scheduled as follows:
July 31 Residential
Aged Care
August 10 Improving
Health Outcomes
August 22* Continuity of
Care
At the
conclusion of all the meetings, a stakeholder consultation report will be made
available.
* Please note that this date has been
re-scheduled.
Please contact
NPS Directors gave the green light
to program and corporate work plans and the $36.3 million budget for 2007-08 at
the June Board meeting.
To secure funding beyond 2009, NPS
will make a submission to the Australian Government Department of Health and
Ageing next year.
At the meeting, Dr Ross Maxwell, a
GP from Dalby in
It was also highlighted that the
GP Class position currently held by Dr Shiong Tan will become vacant in August
2007. Nominations for this position will be considered by the Board in the
coming weeks.
A document detailing the Board
meeting outcomes is attached to this newsletter.
NPS will be better equipped to
take on the challenges ahead, following the Board's approval of an
organisational restructure.
As part of the restructure, a team
of six executive managers will be added to the NPS workforce. The new executive
management team will report to NPS CEO
Finally, some senior staff
movements of late include
NPS would like to thank the GPs,
pharmacists and nurses who volunteered to help spread the common colds need common sense, not antibiotics message, and the
member organisations that helped to recruit the volunteers.
Over 100 health professionals
volunteered to assist 700 childcare centres present their common colds need common sense staff updates, as part of the NPS common colds need common sense, not
antibiotics national campaign launched last month.
"We were overwhelmed by the
response we received. In fact, many health professionals have also volunteered
for next year's campaign," said
One of the volunteers, NPS
facilitator and pharmacist Graham Sweet, said that the main benefit of the
staff updates was being able to dispel the myth that antibiotics were effective
against common colds. He said it was worrying to hear that some childcare
centres would not allow children with a common cold into the childcare centre
unless they were using antibiotics.
According to NPS research, over
one in seven mothers of young children continue to believe incorrectly that
antibiotics can treat a common cold.
Currently, the common colds need common sense, not
antibiotics primary schools competition is underway. To find out more,
visit www.commoncolds.nps.org.au
and click on the schools tab.
For more information on the common
colds campaign, go to commoncolds.nps.org.au
The 'Get to know your medicines'
National Awareness Campaign starts on August 5.
The campaign will include
television advertisements featuring real people in conversation about their
medicines. The conversations will highlight medicine issues, and prompt viewers
to call Medicines Line, talk to their health professional and visit the NPS
website.
Other campaign highlights include
seven medicine facts sheets, a newsletter and a new 'Get to know your
medicines' section of the NPS website. All campaign resources will be available
on the new 'Get to know your medicines' web pages.
We encourage NPS member
organisations to order fact sheets, the newsletter and other resources, and to
forward the newsletter through their own distribution channels.
Running parallel to the 'Get to know
your medicines' National Awareness Campaign, is the development of the
Arthritis NSW seven-week, self-management "Moving on" course.
The course features a session
written in conjunction with NPS called, "Getting the most out of your
medicines". The University of NSW will trial and evaluate the course later
this year.
For more information on the
campaign, go to http://www.nps.org.au/resources/content/NAC_NewsletterJuly07.pdf
Asthma, hypertension and
diabetes medicines training for
Aboriginal health workers start this month.
Twelve health workers from
To ensure this NPS-funded
project is successful, NPS has partnered with the National Aboriginal Community
Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO), and the Aboriginal Health Council of
South Australia (AHCSA).
For more information on the project,
go to the media
section of the NPS website.
NPS is placing a colourful, interactive
'eye' graphic on key Australian nursing websites to encourage nurses to enter a
one-stop, online information shop.
The aim is to help nurses
access NPS independent, evidence-based information.
The colourful, interactive
'eye' graphic provides a brief overview of NPS and invites nurses to click on
it. Nurses are then taken to an
online subscription form which, after completion, will prompt the delivery of
an email alert about the latest NPS electronic publications.
The 'eye' graphic appears on the
Health Professionals page of the NPS website, as well as key Australian nursing
sites, until mid-2008.
This is the first time NPS has
attempted such an online strategy with a key target audience.
NPS facilitators will enjoy
powerful plenary sessions, covering topics such as taking QUM messages to consumers and the power of influence,
at this year's annual Facilitators' Forum:' Identity and Independence'.
A preview of the new NPS
e-audit tool for GPs and the new-look NPS website is also on the program of
this invitation-only event.
Many interesting and
informative new workshops have also been organised. These include 'Enhancing Delivery of Key Messages by
Overcoming Cognitive Dissonance', 'Connecting with the Aboriginal Health
Sector' and 'Writing Abstracts and Developing Posters with Pulling Power'.
Around 120 facilitators have
already registered for the Forum, which will be held at Brighton-le-Sands, in
southern
More than 1800 pharmacists
have registered for the NPS Pharmacy Practice Audit on medication management in
hypertension.
This audit marks the first
time that pharmacists have been able to register online via the NPS website.
The hypertension audit rollout
is slightly different to other 2007 audits as it is being deployed in two
phases.
During the first phase,
pharmacists who register by 20 July and complete their audit by 17 August will
receive feedback before the end of the year.
During the second phase,
pharmacists who register by late October 2007 will receive feedback in February
2008.
Hypertension medication
management aims to improve blood pressure by educating patients about
hypertension, medicines, and the risks associated with not taking
medicines.
Non-drug management using
lifestyle changes is also important to lower blood pressure.
The effects of reporting medicines
in the media were the focus of last months NPS Medicines in the Media seminar for Pfizer
Speakers included
For more information on the seminar
contact
Vaccines that prevent gastroenteritis
caused by rotavirus, and some types of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection are
reviewed in the latest edition of NPS
RADAR.
Also in the latest edition are reviews
of the following medicines: atomoxetine (Strattera) for the treatment of ADHD,
and strontium ranelate (Protos) for the treatment of osteoporosis...
For more information go to the RADAR website.
Thanks to some of the interventions
described by Andrew McCann, the outlook for patients with coronary occlusion
has improved.
Survivors may, however, become
depressed, and James Olver and Graham Burrows say that depression often
co-exists with medical illness. If antidepressants are prescribed they may
cause the patient unexpected consequences such as the dental problems discussed
by Michael Page and Luke Somerville-Brown.
Osteonecrosis of the jaw is another
example of a drug treatment causing a dental problem. Alastair Goss and
Patricia Backhouse describe this uncommon adverse effect of bisphosphonates.
Australian Prescriber is available online from early August on www.australianprescriber.com.
The winter edition of MedicinesTalk
will be available at the end of July.
It will cover the "Getting the
most out of your medicines" module of the "Moving on" course, plus "Managing the pain
of osteoarthritis', "Buying medicines over the internet" and
"What's in a name" - knowing the active ingredients of your
medicines.
To subscribe to or download MedicinesTalk go to www.nps.org.au and click on 'consumers' then 'MedicinesTalk'.
Kind regards,
Corporate Public Affairs and Marketing
National
Prescribing Service Limited
Level 7/418A Elizabeth St Surry
Hills NSW 2010
PO Box 1147 Strawberry Hills NSW 2012
P: 02 8217 8700 F: 02 9211 7578