Surfing the Pandemic Wave: Innovate or Drown?
A Novel Pharmacy Model for COVID-19 Oral Therapy
Jocelyn Tabb Senior Pharmacist BHS at Home (No conflict of interest to disclose)
December 2022
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In 2020 then Ballarat Health Services (now
Grampians Health) prioritised expansion of bed based programs as part of a ‘designing our future’ project.
Buyer Beware!
We were ‘sold’ an expanded HITH model
115 Virtual Beds as Phase One.
Hmmm… better get some Pharmacy input!
1.2 pharmacist EFT initially
COVID-19 pandemic wave – innovate or
drown
Stratification via Covid
pathway
Community pharmacies (later when PBS
listed) BHS at Home
Pharmacy Team
Dispensary
Patient Nursing review
NMS Supplies Delivery of
medicines
GP working from home Oct
2021
Nov 2021
18 Jan 2022
>18 Jan 2022
The immediate priority became:
How do we ensure all high risk/eligible patients receive appropriate, safe therapy within 5 days, all remotely?
PHARMACIST COMMENCED
TECHNICIAN COMMENCED
PAXLOVID, LAGEVRIO AVAILABLE VIA NMS
GPs CONTRACTED TO START PRESCRIBING ORAL THERAPIES (WORKING FROM
HOME – OFTEN OUT OF REGION)
So what did we come
up with????
Needed to be innovative, responsive, patient
centred
DOCTOR DOCTOR
• Doctor screens (from home)
• If eligible for treatment contacts pharmacy team via email and MS Teams call
PHARMACIST PHARMACIST
• Pharmacist completes medication history, interaction check then counsels patient via Telehealth (if
possible)
• Documents recommendations
• Communicates back to doctor
PHARMACY TECHNICIAN
PHARMACY TECHNICIAN
• Doctor prescribes and emails copy of script to pharmacy team
• Pharmacy technician coordinates supply and delivery, communicates with patient
PHARMACY TEAM PHARMACY
TEAM
• Patient counselled (if not already done) including how to take, interactions, what to withhold if applicable
• Follow-up call to patient at end of treatment
• Pharmacist on-call roster for weekends (from home)
3 month snapshot July – Sept 2022
75 patients referred for 7 day a week Paxlovid® screening
ALL patients received
• a comprehensive medication history workup,
• interaction check,
• documentation of recommendations,
• feedback to the prescriber,
• counselling from a pharmacist on initiation and completion of Paxlovid
• 75% pharmacist consultations were via telehealth
• pharmacy technician managed supply logistics for 81% (except weekends)
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100% of pharmacist
recommendations were fully or partially
implemented Complexity Rating – arbitrary measure of degree of difficulty
relating to the consultation
Patient’s rating of care provided
Shameless plug See poster
92679
The Covid-19 pandemic forced a change to previous pharmacy models of care.
Multidisciplinary Teamwork with pharmacy as an essential member allowed an innovative,
responsive, evolving, patient centred model of care - all delivered remotely.
Special thanks to my pharmacy flock team: Renee Dimond, Kaitlin Dening and Daniela Bowen.
Questions?
Thank ewe
grampianshealth.org.au