The Child Development Service (CDS) at the Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service (GCHHS) is a pioneer in integrating pharmacists into paediatric disability care, showcasing benefits in patient care and clinic efficiency. Despite a surge in demand for paediatric care over the last 24 months, innovative strategies, including increased pharmacy support, have increased efficiency. This is evident in reduced waiting times, increased occasions of service per patient, improved quality of care and a significant return on investment.
Partners in Disability Care: A Paediatric-Pharmacy Shared Care Model
Summary
Aim
To offer an alternative care model for medication reviews in young people with developmental disabilities at the Child Development Service at the Gold Coast HHS, aiming to enhance patient care and clinic efficiency by involving pharmacists, under indirect paediatric supervision, to perform medication follow-ups.
Benefits
- Reduction in number of paediatrician appointments required per child, which increase the capacity of paediatricians to focus on new referrals to service.
- Enhanced individual care through paediatrician-pharmacist collaboration: more review appointments available, increased timeliness of review, increased capacity to offer more new paediatric appointments and address waiting list demands.
- Significant return on investment, with the service yielding 2.2 times its cost.
- Increased virtual care: as the pharmacy clinic operates predominately virtually, this improves accessibility and flexibility for patients and caregivers, reducing geographical barriers and increasing convenience in accessing specialised care.
- Additional skill set of Pharmacists complementing multidisciplinary team, improving paediatricians’ understanding of medications.
- Pharmacists broaden their scope of practice, functioning seamlessly within the interdisciplinary team.
Background
The CDS at the Gold Coast HHS pioneered pharmacist integration within the service four years ago, marking an industry first. This innovative service delivery model has resulted in development of clear guidelines around the role and scope of the pharmacist within paediatric disability care and showcased tangible benefits in quality of patient care and clinic efficiencies.
Over the past 24 months, the Paediatric Development Clinic has faced unprecedented demand with a 175% increase in new referrals. Despite the implementation of various improvement priorities, this demand has exceeded allocated funding resources.