Dr Lisa Pont recognised at NPS awards

Dr Lisa Pont was recognised in the National Medicinewise Awards, presented at the National Medicines Symposium 2016, held in Canberra on 19-20 May 2016. Dr Pont led the De-prescribing Project Team from the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University in their project "Managing the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) in residential aged care". The project was the winner of the Excellence in health professional programs: <$100,000 budget category.

It is estimated that by 2050 over 1 million Australian will be living with dementia and that half of these will be living in residential aged care.The need to ensure the highest quality of medicine use for older persons is critical. Successful, evidence-based, financially viable interventions such as the de-prescribing project are essential in ensuring that older Australia’s get maximum benefit and minimum harm from their medicines. Working with doctors, nurses, pharmacists, carers and managers across an entire aged care organisation, the de-prescribing project designed and implemented a new model of care and reduce antipsychotic use for 1800 older Australians in residential aged care by almost 50%. The de-prescribing project translated the current research evidence base regarding strategies to reduce antipsychotic use in aged care into a successful quality improvement initiative that improved the quality of antipsychotic use for Australians in residential aged care.

Congratulations to Dr Pont on receiving this award.

Media coverage: Society of Hospital Pharacists Australia and the Australian Journal of Pharmacy

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Monday, 23 May 2016