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Croakey

Pharmacists in Remote Areas

by Robbo on 31/08/2009

four_wheel_driveCroakey (The Crikey Health blog) has recently had a post on Home Medication Reviews and the “thorny issue of interprofessional practice”. The problem of pharmacists providing a “complete” role in rural and remote areas was mentioned.

I couldn’t help myself and made comment. It can almost stand alone so I have reproduced it below. I guess there will have to be more to follow on this subject in a future post.

Regarding the impact on rural and remote areas:
Home Medicine Reviews (HMRs) in remote areas have long been problematical. As discussed, solo pharmacists in remote rural areas cannot leave their pharmacy to perform them. In truly remote areas there is usually no pharmacist as part of the primary healthcare team.

The Australian Pharmacy Council (of which all Pharmacy Boards are members) released a report in June 2009 on the Remote Rural Pharmacists Project (PDF) looking at ways for pharmacists to be able to work outside the confines of a pharmacy in remote rural areas.

The Department of Health and Ageing in December 2008 released a report by Campbell Research & Consulting on the Home Medicines Review Program Qualitative Research Project (PDF) that contain strategies for providing alternative models of HMRs to reach Indigenous consumers.

OATSIH has also recently funded a pharmacist position with an Aboriginal Health Service. If this continues and some points in these reports are acted on there is hope for better service delivery of HMRs by pharmacists in remote areas.

Robbo
(Disclosure: I had some input into both reports)

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Tagged as: Croakey, HMR, Home Medicine Reviews, pharmacy, Remote health

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Does Influenza Vaccination provide any protection against H1N1?

by Robbo on 08/08/2009

Over at Croakey, Crikey.com.au’s health blog there is an interesting article on why submissions to the Victorian government on why proposals for developing healthcare identifiers and related privacy legislation should be public. One of the case studies used in his argument is the need to track any potential adverse effects from influenza vaccination, particularly H1N1.

One of the crucial requirements he states is to determine “whether or not the current vaccine for seasonal influenza affords any protection against the new H1N1 variant”.

My gut feeling from what I have seen is there is little or no protection. This also seems to be the results from a study reported in Eurosurveillance:

Interim analysis of pandemic influenza (H1N1) 2009 in Australia: surveillance trends, age of infection and effectiveness of seasonal vaccination

There was no evidence of significant protection from seasonal vaccine against pandemic influenza virus infection in any age group.

It seems we will be up for a huge vaccination effort (possibly two vaccinations, one month apart) from some time after October.

There is more information on the just received Promed email listing available through the International Society of Infectious Diseases. Look for “PRO/AH/EDR> Influenza pandemic (H1N1) 2009 (25): Australia, UK, updates” (note: later check shows linkbroken). Some of the links in the Promed e-mail are worth a look:

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Tagged as: Crikey, Croakey, Eurosurveillance, H1N1, influenza, pandemic, swine flu, vaccination, vaccine, virus

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