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indispensable
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CHAIRPERSON’S REPORT
chairperson’s report
1
upcoming CE
1
SHPA WA branch
committee 2015
1
from the editor
2
federally speaking... 2
Updates from Federal Office
SHPA WA AGM 2014 2
debugging the bush
3
the full 360 on
antipsychotics 3
Celebrating success, inspiring excellence and
reaping the rewards of resilience
How rural pharmacists are helping the crusade
against antibiotic resistance
A recap of our highly successful half day seminar
The Society of Hospital
Pharmacists
Western Australia
Branch
GPO Box K814, Perth WA 6842
[email protected]
2015 Committee
Matthew Foster: Chairperson
Deirdre Criddle: Vice Chairperson
Kerry Fitzsimons: Secretary
Brock Delfante: Treasurer
Helen Lovitt: Federal Councillor
Shannon Mullen: Lead CE Coordinator
Ashleigh Lawrence: CE Coordinator
Meeghan Clay: CE Coordinator
Sarah Mackenzie: CE Coordinator
Daniel Rocco: Communications Manager
Vanessa Hollingsworth: Technician
Representative
Morlee Vekaria: Intern Representative
december 2014
Matthew Foster - Chairperson
YAY, it’s the end of the year and most people are winding down, taking extra leave and
getting some rest. There are others who are working overtime, working to deadlines and
planning for events in the New Year. With the election of a new SHPA WA Branch
committee, this time of year is one of planning and preparation for SHPA. The reality is
that, even though we may be looking forward to a rest over the festive season, there are CE
events to organise and special events to consider. Many people will be feeling the stress of
being over-worked, pressured and maybe even depressed over the year’s events. I urge any
pharmacist who needs support at this time to call the Pharmacists Support Network on
1300 244 910. This is an amazing service that allows pharmacists to support each other.
Most professions are not as fortunate as we are to have this service. If you’re not in
requirement of their services, maybe you could consider volunteering to assist others in
need?
From now, I’d like to ask all pharmacists in WA to start preparing for the SHPA Federal
Conference in 2016. No, I’m not getting a year ahead of myself, and yes, I seem to mention it
ALL the time. What I’d love to see is preliminary research results presented at the 2015
Federal Conference in Melbourne, then final results presented at the 2016 Perth Federal
Conference. We should have a showcase of research which is over and above the quality
seen anywhere. Each year we hear from the Conference Organisers that “this year was the
best ever”. I want it to be just that, not just lip service. From paediatrics to geriatrics, trauma
and surgery, to oncology and palliative care and everything in between, there is research
going on everywhere! And pharmacy should be the front-line drivers of the projects. As
long as all Chief Pharmacists in WA realise the benefit they can provide by giving support to
a pharmacist who wants to be involved in research, then we’re well on the way to achieving
our goal.
I hope that all of you take the opportunity to get some rest and spend time relaxing,
rejuvenating and with loved ones over the Festive Season. May your revitalisation be
manifested with enthusiasm into the new year.
UPCOMING CONTINUING EDUCATION
Our continuing education plans for 2015 are yet to be finalised, however our plans are
sure to excite, with sessions based on feedback from our members.
An overwhelmingly positive response to this year’s half day seminar has us looking to
offer more CE focussed on psychiatry, along with calendar staples such as the
Oncology Nurses and Pharmacist Interest Group night. The annual SHPA Infectious
Diseases Seminar is also to be held here in Perth this year.
2015 is looking to be a wonderful year for continuing education, and the SHPA WA
Branch Committee encourages you to keep your eyes and ears peeled for further
information as it becomes available. The committee also welcomes any ideas from its
members about future CE topics.
SHPA WA BRANCH COMMITTEE 2015
Four new committee members were elected to the SHPA WA Branch Committee at the 2014
AGM: Meeghan Clay (Albany Regional Hospital), Sarah Mackenzie (Sir Charles Gairdner
Hospital), Ashleigh Lawrence (St. John of God Hospital, Subiaco) and Daniel Rocco (Royal
Perth Hospital).
The Committee also retains current members Matthew Foster, Deirdre Criddle, Kerry
Fitzsimons, Brock Delfante, Shannon Mullen, Helen Lovitt, Vanessa Hollignsworth and
Morlee Vekaria.
The SHPA WA Branch Committee would like to thank outgoing committee members Aisling
Lim, Michelle Luca, Yang Liu and Zeyad Ibrahim for their continued hard work and service
over the course of their terms.
Indispensable, the newsletter of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists, WA Branch
indispensable
FROM THE EDITOR
Daniel Rocco - Communications Manager
december 2014
SHPA WA AGM 2014
Deirdre Criddle - Vice Chairperson
Welcome to the final issue of Indispensable for 2014! As we bid
the year farewell, we can all look forward to the Christmas
holidays and the exciting prospects of 2015. The year looks to be
one full of new and exciting developments in hospital pharmacy,
with Fiona Stanley Hospital beginning to offer a full service, the
restructure of the Royal Perth Hospital Group and the new
children’s hospital slated to open late in the year.
SHPA is here to be the voice for hospital pharmacists, and so we
are always looking for feedback from our members on what it is
you feel we can be offering you, whether it be support or what
kind of continuing education. The Committee for 2015 is pumped
and ready to go, so please, voice your thoughts with us! For
myself in particular as communications manager, I’m looking to
increase SHPA’s presence in your workplace.
On 3rd December, SHPA WA branch members were treated to
a night of fine food, good wine and a celebration of excellence,
resilience and inspiration at the Annual General Meeting held
at the UWA Club. There was a wonderful mix of experience and
youthful enthusiasm, with many sporting the new Fiona Stanley
uniform proudly, a symbol of the recent and welcome addition to
the healthcare landscape for 2014.
I wish you all a merry Christmas and a relaxing break over this
holiday season.
Barry Jenkins, the Chief Pharmacist of the Fiona Stanley
Hospital was awarded the SHPA WA Branch Achievement Award
for 2014. Barry was honoured for his significant contribution to
the profession over many years, particularly recently where he
was instrumental in the planning, building and opening of a new
state-of-the-art hospital pharmacy. This took a herculean effort,
and despite the many barriers and extreme pressures, Barry’s
vision and optimism for hospital pharmacy have prevailed. Barry
has been a collaborative leader throughout his career, aptly
demonstrated in his role in establishing the Chief Pharmacists
Forum and more recently the WA Hospital Pharmacy Research
Alliance. This innovative venture captured the imagination of the
Nation’s best and brightest at the recent national SHPA
Future Summit. In accepting this honour, Barry paid tribute to his
mentors, Peter Tenni, Mal Roberts and the late Jennifer Benzie, his
former staff at Royal Perth Hospital where he was Chief
Pharmacist for many years, as well as his newly formed team at
Fiona Stanley.
FEDERALLY SPEAKING...
Helen Lovitt - Federal Councillor
It’s been a year of change at a Federal level in 2014. As 2013 drew
to a close, Council were debating the benefits of giving our
journal an online presence. Twelve months later and this has
happened. Your December 2014 edition of JPPR is out online now.
What this means is improved and speedier access to the journal’s
informative articles and research, as well as easier searching for
you. It is likely that this will result in more submissions to the
journal with its position in the Wiley Publishing stable.
Furthermore, your CPD offerings are now often offered as
webinars meaning that more people can attend without
travelling to the actual site of the presentations. While this is still
in its infancy, it offers another string to your bow for keeping
current, informed and connected. It is always nicer to attend in
person and do the all-important networking with other
attendees however; don’t discount this! Please give the Branch
feedback as to how this service can be improved as well.
Feedback means improvements for you and a better experience
for all.
All of this means, of course, that other things must come to an
end. Your CE on CD will be finishing in the New Year and the
funding previously used for these disks will now be utilised to
supplement and strengthen the webinars, and expand the
numbers who can attend.
Council are also looking at their own functionality, and our
quarterly board meetings have been pared back so that we can
spend time on the things that will best benefit the Society’s future
direction. 2015 will see the second in the Future Summit series so
keep your eyes open for nominations to attend this.
I extend Season’s Greetings to all our members. I hope that the
holiday period is a safe and happy one for all and I look forward to
a productive and happy 2015.
The Pharmacy Intern of the Year for 2014 was awarded to Alex
Dare. Alex was described as a stand out example of a dedicated,
humble, dependable, highly professional young man. Alex has
approached this year with enthusiasm and a refreshing, proactive
outlook which has engaged both patients and colleagues alike.
He appears to have a bright future ahead of him.
The evening was capped off by an inspirational address by Lyn
Foreman - a four time Australian 400 metres Hurdles National
Champion who represented Australia at the World
Championships, two World Cups, Commonwealth Games and the
Pacific Conference Games. Lyn is the only person to win Women’s
Sports West’s, Sports Woman of the Year and Coach of the Year
Awards, winning this honour not once, but twice.
Lyn delighted the audience with her humour and humility,
anecdotes and wisdom. She challenged pharmacists to “trust and
believe in yourself and your work ethic.” Her message was
easily translatable to life, career and health – “Stick to you plan,
stay ahead of the game, research and always continue to learn.”
As an athletics coach concerned with the lack of physical
movement in our children, she implored pharmacists to become
more involved in selling the health message – Make exercise a
habit not a hobby. Schedule it in your diary today. Sounds like a
great New Year’s resolution!
Indispensable, the newsletter of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists, WA Branch
indispensable
DEBUGGING THE BUSH
Meeghan Clay - CE Coordinator
december 2014
THE FULL 360 ON ANTIPSYCHOTICS
Deirdre Criddle -Vice Chairperson
“Refreshingly different!”, “Great mix of speakers”, “Wow, great to
have the consumer perspective on mental health!” These were
just a few of the reactions from the half day seminar,
“Antipsychotics: Swings and Round-a-bouts” held at Technology
Park, Bentley on Saturday 8th November, 2014.
Country hospital pharmacists work in a physically and
professionally isolated environment. Despite this, the challenges
faced are the same as the ones faced by all hospital pharmacists,
perhaps with some extra logistical challenges of getting
medicines and pharmacy services delivered across many
kilometres. Rural pharmacists are often generalist, unable to have
the luxury of specialising in a particular field.
One the most recent challenges for country health services is the
delivery of an antimicrobial stewardship program. Rural hospitals
are an environment in which many practitioners are visiting
medical officers, meaning there is no capacity for a dedicated
multidisciplinary antimicrobial stewardship team, and often lack
infectious disease consultants completely. There is a
reliance on phone consultations with microbiologists and
infectious disease consultants to provide a limited degree of
support. Additionally, the antimicrobial biograms across WA are
as diverse as the landscape.
Despite these challenges, antimicrobial stewardship programs
and the promotion of prudent use of antibiotics is gaining
traction in the bush. One of the main drivers of this change across
the regional hospitals has been the pharmacy teams. Simple
provisions such as enforcing antibiotic stop orders and
promotion of therapeutic guidelines is a starting point. Many sites
have participated this year in the NAPS audit and are starting to
develop local guidelines based on the resistance data.
Antibiotic awareness week was well promoted in the country
sites. The week coincided with a meeting of regional medical
directors and directors of nursing so the groups arranged a joint
Grand Round which was broadcast via the SCOPIA network to all
regional sites. This allowed attendance by pharmacist, nurses and
medical practitioners across the state. Albany and Kalgoorlie
hospitals also dressed their pharmacists in antibiotic awareness
shirts and the nursing and medical teams in Bunbury wrote
messages of support on cards like, “I am a Nanna and I pledge to
use antibiotics better for my grandchildren”. Other activities in the
region included an online version of the antibiotic quiz and
promotion of the 7 steps to better antibiotic use in the café of
Albany Health Campus.
Overall the week was a useful promotion activity for country sites.
The challenge is making the changes in practice in the country
sites where many doctors have been working a very independent
practitioners. They don’t always welcome the support of others
but they are starting to see the benefits.
The seminar was opened with an inspiring address by Dr Gordon
Shymko, Consultant Psychiatrist from Rockingham Kwinana who
challenged our group to think differently about mental health.
He emphasised the importance of communication and
relationships to effective prescribing and encouraged the
embracing of care coordination to mental health recovery.
Darren Schwartz, clinical pharmacist from Graylands, provided a
very informative presentation, stretching us to understand the
pharmacology of antipsychotics, comparing and contrasting the
typical and atypical antipsychotics. He provided us with receptor
based comparisons explaining the action and side effects and
flagged his interest in future research regarding treatment
resistance.
Assistant Professor Deena Ashoorian, a PhD student from UWA,
presented her innovative research focussed on raising awareness
of consumer’s perspectives of side effects of antipsychotic
medication. She challenged pharmacists to use their wisdom,
experience and empathy when “telling the truth” about side
effects antipsychotic medications. This sparked great interest in
the group, and clearly challenged us all to reconsider how we
counsel on these medications and why pharmacists have such an
important role in each patient’s healthcare journey.
In a natural segue, Amanda Waegeli captivated the audience with
her open and honest account of her journey from “treatment
resistant” to recovery and consumer advocate. Her story left us all
with a greater understanding of the people behind the
medicines, and she emphasised the importance of
communication from our profession too.
The panel discussion brought the morning to an end, allowing
the consumer advocate, the clinician and the academic to share
the stage, and their views on how we can improve the journey
and outcomes for mental health patients. It effectively closed
the loop on Dr Shymko’s opening address where he encouraged
pharmacists to work more closely with patients, and think
beyond the medicines to improve the pathway to recovery for
more patients in mental health. We were not left wondering
about the importance of our role.
As we approach a New Year, we look to our members to keep the
agenda fresh and inviting for CE. Our thanks to the hard
working CE Committee who put in considerable time and effort
into making education available and enjoyable on a regular basis
to the SHPA community. In particular, Shannon Mullen, who has
ensured webinar recording for each event, especially for our
country membership – and became a first time father! If you
have a passion which you would like to tell us about, or know of
an inspirational speaker who you consider our profession would
benefit from hearing from – don’t hesitate to give us a call!
Indispensable, the newsletter of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists, WA Branch