MATES for a better life
A $7.6 million dollar funding package to work with the Department of Veterans' Affairs, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health carers over the next three years is set to deliver a special kind of mateship to thousands of older Australians.
Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Danna Vale, announced the multi million dollar education program to be known as Veterans’ MATES (Medicines Advice and Therapeutics Education Services) at a special launch at UniSA this month.
UniSA was selected as leader of the consortium because of the nationally and internationally recognised research carried out at its Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre, headed by Associate Professor Andrew Gilbert.
Prof Gilbert said the Veteran’s MATES project would provide exciting opportunities for making a significant difference to veterans’ quality of life.
“There are about 380,000 veterans in Australia and 75 per cent of those people are already aged over 70 years,” he said.
“Like many of these older people veterans have chronic conditions or simply more complex health needs that are part and parcel of the ageing process. They also commonly report poor eyesight, some hearing loss and decreased mobility.”
Prof Gilbert said those three factors alone could have obvious implications for how veterans used medicines or received information about their medicines.
Research conducted for UniSA’s Centre for the Australian Safety and Quality Council showed that one in five emergency hospital admissions in the 65 plus age group were medication related. In the 75 plus age group that figure was one in 3.7. The research also showed that the problems surrounding inappropriate use of medicines were often related to breakdowns in communication, misunderstandings and confusion.
“Our research has found that about 60 per cent of these sorts of problems are preventable,” Prof Gilbert said.
“The problems range from simply not taking required medications, to taking different versions of the same medication, or taking medicines that are no longer needed and we believe the program will help to reduce these incidents.
“The Veterans’ MATES program is designed to reach and support the health professionals who look after our veterans but also to advise veterans themselves so that they can be more aware of the questions they need to ask and the care they need to take with their medicines.”
Prof Gilbert said Veterans’ MATES would work by connecting across the caring professions and through the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to build a receptive community of care surrounding veterans and their use of medicines.
He said the national project would ensure that UniSA’s Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre retained its world class research scientists and continued to attract high quality researchers and postgraduate students.
“We have assembled a top flight team of experts from UniSA, the Departments of General Practice and Public Health at Adelaide University, the Australian Medicines Handbook, the Drug and Therapeutics Information Service, the Repatriation General Hospital Daw Park and the National Prescribing Service,” he said.
“That team together with the DVA gives us a world-class program focusing on the quality use of medicines by veterans and the results of our work will go a long way to giving veterans better quality of lives.”