The School of Pharmacy shined this past May at the National Medicines Symposium (NMS) dinner where Juanita Westbury and Greg Peterson in collaboration with Andrew Robinson from the School of Nursing and Midwifery, won an award for community engagement.
The award labelled ‘Building a medicinewise community: consumer programs’ was given to the RedUSE (Reducing Use of Sedatives) Program stating “RedUSE is a worthy project with scope to translate research results into policy and training”.
Based on Dr Westbury’s PhD thesis entitled: ‘Roles for pharmacists in improving the quality use of psychotropic medication in residential aged care facilities’ the RedUSE Program consisted of pharmacist-led intervention to analyse the use of psychotropic medications in aged care facilities to treat insomnia, anxiety and challenging behaviour. The team consisting of School of Pharmacy staff, School of Nursing and Midwifery staff and community based researcher Dr Shane Jackson, worked with 25 aged care facilities in Hobart and Launceston as well as 13 community pharmacies.
The project was significant in that it established strong networks with members of the community in both Hobart and Launceston and successfully promoted the appropriate use and timely review of psychotropic medications in aged care facilities.