Editorial
Welcome to the March edition of i2P – Information to Pharmacists.
You may have noiticed if you receive i2P by email, that we have simplified our mail out presentation.
This was because the code in our earlier version appeared to be too unstable to maintain, hence the simpler presentation.
Columns
Rollo Manning: Pharma-Goss
John Dunlop: Inside NZ
Loretta Marron BSc: Health Watch
Barry Urquhart: Marketing Focus
Harvey Mackay: Strategic Thinking
Mark Neuenschwander: I`ve been thinking about...Recent Comments
Past Editions
Volume 1 Number 1
Volume 1 Number 2
Volume 1 Number 3
Volume 1 Number 4
Volume 1 Number 5
Volume 1 Number 6
Volume 1 Number 7
Volume 2 Number 1
Volume 2 Number 2
Pharma News
Hospital News
Health Politics
Pat Gallagher: Health Informatics - The State of the Nation
Peter Sayers: The Three-Ring Circus
Dr David More: e-Health IdentifiersEPublications
New Chronic Disease Management Service Launched in Queensland
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Editing and Researching news and stories about global and local Pharmacy Issues | |
Chronic disease management uses much of Australia's health budget.
Programs that keep patients out of hospitals create major savings for hospitals in general, and by extension, nursing homes as well.
A new chronic disease management program (LINCS) has been launched in Queensland, to be developed as a national model
i2P has long advocated for community pharmacists to develop their own program for "Pharmacy in the Home" because there are substantial benefits by developing a linkage to a patient's home.
While pharmacy is a participant in the above as a service provider, it would appear that its role is limited to medication reviews, and currently does not offer the opportunity to expand pharmacy services within the LINCS operation.
Unless there are more viable pharmacy programs developed to dovetail with various community efforts, pharmacy will not be fully represented within the healthcare team.
Source: DPS Guide to Aged Care
http://www.agedcareguide.com.au/news.asp?newsid=4332
Australian first in chronic care launched in Qld
Darling Downs residents suffering from chronic disease will be the first to trial a new chronic care program that aims to improve the quality of life and reduce the rate of unplanned hospital admissions for patients with heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and other long-term chronic illnesses.
The LINCS (Linking Chronic Disease Services) program, the first of its kind in Australia, was launched by Deputy Premier and Minister for Health, Paul Lucas.
The Queensland Health funded initiative is a partnership between BlueCare, GP Connections (Toowoomba and Darling Downs Division of General Practice), RHealth (South East Queensland Rural Division of General Practice) and Queensland Health.
A total of $875,000 has been provided by Queensland Health over two years from the Queensland Strategy for Chronic Disease 2005-2015 and is distributed through participating partners including RHealth, GP Connections and Bluecare, with an estimated 100 patients to participate in the early part of the trial.
Mr Lucas said the program's aim was to improve quality of life and reduce the need for hospital based care for patients suffering from chronic disease.
"The Queensland Government is committed to reducing rates of chronic disease by a third by 2020 and initiatives such as this will go lengths in helping to achieve this," Mr Lucas said.
"This initiative has been recognised as an example of the future of chronic disease management and its services will contribute to managing growing demand for, and supply of, health services in the area.
Mr Lucas said patients living with a long term chronic condition would be allocated a Care Coordinator who would complete a comprehensive assessment and care plan in consultation with the patient's GP.
The Care Coordinator could be the patient's practice nurse, a nurse from a non-government organisation such as BlueCare, or a community health nurse (Queensland Health) - depending on the needs of the patient.
The care plan, in most cases, will enable access to Medicare subsidised allied health visits through registered service providers.
The Care Coordinator will be the central point of contact for all service providers and coordinate all visits, aided by an online Directory of participating Service Providers.
Currently there are more than 80 private, government and non-government providers registered for the program across areas including physiotherapy, psychology, exercise psychology, speech pathology and pharmacy.
The LINCS Program will be supported by a website http://www.lincsdd.org.au
"LINCS have developed an electronic tool which enables care coordinators to collect assessment information which will automatically build a Care Plan in a format acceptable to Medicare," Mr Lucas said.
"This tool also allows the automatic creation of a complete Ongoing Needs Identification (ONI), the standard tool used within Queensland's HACC services.
"The Queensland government remains committed to tackling the burden of chronic disease on all fronts and this is an innovative approach that I am pleased to see being pioneered in a regional community," he said.
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