The sweet spot for pharmacy

Abstract

Health care in Australia is of a high standard but often complex and fragmented, creating difficulties in negotiating the healthcare system for consumers in need of care. Pharmacists have many opportunities to leverage their easy accessibility and skills in medication management to optimise health outcomes for consumers in a changing healthcare landscape. The profession can support shared decision making between patients and their health professionals by tailoring evidence-based pharmacotherapeutic advice to individual patients’ needs; pharmacists can also facilitate patients' safe transitions between care settings by early adoption of information systems. Pharmacists will need to extend their interprofessional collaboration and align their services to national health care priorities. For pharmacists to maximise their contribution to health care and patient outcomes that matter their skills may need to include the ability to analyse epidemiological and health data, translating data into knowledge and person-centred performance indicators.