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Media Release

October 7, 2004

Pharmacy conference to target safe drug use for the aged

More than 500 pharmacists from across Australia and New Zealand will head to South Australia for the 10th Pharmacy Australia Congress 2004 (PAC 2004) being held in Adelaide for the first time from October 15 to 17.

Chair of the Organizing Committee, Dr Bob Milne from UniSA’s School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences says the conference will have a strong focus on the role that pharmacists play in ensuring Australia's rapidly aging population gets the most from their use of medicines.

“We are all getting older and at the same time birth rates in Australia have fallen dramatically so that our community as a whole is ageing,” Dr Milne said.

Dr Milne said that while people often talked about the ageing crisis, there were some very real issues relating to the ageing population that required long term planning. In 2001 almost 36 per cent of Australians were at least 45 years of age and that figure is on the increase.

“It is clear that an increasing percentage of our population will be seeking services from the health and housing sector,” he said. “The aged do place more demands on the health system, primarily through their contact with medical practitioners in the community and the hospital system and with the increasing incidence of illness there is usually an increasing use of medicines.”

Dr Milne said while all drugs caused side-effects, adverse effects were more likely to arise when the drugs were not used appropriately.

“There are a range of variables that can impact on how people use their medications,” he said.

“Patients frequently return from hospital to their homes or aged-care facilities with medication different from what they were taking prior to entry into hospital. Doctors may not always be aware that their patients are taking other drugs and those drugs may include over-the-counter conventional and complementary medicines. Sometimes patients stop taking their medicines, or do not take them as instructed.

“We now know that more than 140,000 admissions to hospitals each year are related to problems with the under or over use of medicines, over prescribed medicines or inappropriate choice of a drug or its dose (2nd National Report on Patient Safety - Improving Medication Safety, Safety & Quality Council, 2002).

“Half of those admissions were assessed as being preventable. About a quarter of all unplanned admissions of the elderly population to hospital are related to problems with the use of medications and it is estimated that in hospital costs alone the bill is $640 million per annum.”

Dr Milne said pharmacists were highly trained on all aspects of drug use, and well-placed to play an important role in ensuring patients used them correctly to minimize adverse events.

“The 10th Pharmacy Australia Congress 2004 will examine what services the elderly are seeking, what changes occur as we age which necessitate changes in the way drugs are prescribed for the elderly group, how their use of medicines can be improved, and how the risks to patients can be reduced.,” he said.

“The conference will also look at what disease states are most prevalent as we age, and what therapies are appropriate."

The conference will be held at the Adelaide Convention Centre.
More information is available online.

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