Promoting responsible and equitable use of medicines
Since 2020, Te Pātaka Whaioranga – Pharmac has been working alongside research and data company Matui to support health professionals with equity focused tools, education resources, and personalised prescribing dashboards.
“We know health professionals have a big part to play in reducing inequities in access to healthcare in New Zealand,” says Manager Access Equity, Sandhava (Sandy) Bhawan.
“As part of our role in the health and disability system, we need to make sure the people who are prescribing or dispensing the medicines have the right information from us, at the right time.
“Our current focus is to influence medicine access equity for Māori and Pacific peoples for five priority conditions – cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and gout.
“He Ako Hiringa is a website, created by Matui, that provides a variety of educational tools and resources to address medicines access equity, as well as support and promote the responsible use of pharmaceuticals.”
Chief Executive of Matui, Anna Mickell, is thrilled to be in partnership with Pharmac.
“Together we aim to drive improvements in equitable access to medicines,” says Anna.
“We work with all types of clinicians, subject matter experts, clinical quality professionals, and organisations across the primary care sector to identify and deliver what tools they need.
“This year, we have strengthened our medicine analytics dashboard EpiC with new data themes that have a focus on known national problems of prescribing practice.
“An example of this is our type 2 diabetes dashboard. It can help general practice users to reflect on how diabetes medicines and devices have been used by their enrolled population and quickly see where the opportunities for quality improvement may be found.
“We’re looking forward to continuing our relationship with Pharmac and strengthening our focus on health equity, delivered in a way that will help to support primary care health professionals,” concludes Anna.