Design and development of the clinical pharmacy key performance indicators dashboard for equity of service provision at regional and rural hospitals in North Queensland, Australia

• Published in: Journal of Pharmacy Practice and Research
• Main Authors: Mirkov, Sanja, Jones, Rhondda, Ison, Alexander, Wilesmith, Allan, Black, Jason
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2024
• Subjects: Queensland; First Nations
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jppr.1920; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jppr.1920

Abstract Background Provision of a Medication Action Plan (MAP) on admission and a Discharge Medication Record (DMR) are associated with reduced medication‐related harm. Aim To report factors associated with the provision of MAPs and DMRs in rural and regional hospitals in Queensland, Australia. Method A literature search, environmental scan and department consultations were conducted to develop Clinical Pharmacy Key Performance Indicators (cpKPIs) and design a cpKPI dashboard. Two of the five KPIs included in the dashboard, relating to medication action plans on admission and medication records on discharge, were reported for all the hospitals and were included in the study. A retrospective, period‐prevalence study was conducted to evaluate the coverage and equity of clinical pharmacy service provision for patients admitted for longer than 24 h. The proportions of patients who received MAPs and DMRs were stratified by age, gender, Indigeneity and hospital type. Statistical analysis used chi‐squared tests and logistic regression in R. This project was exempt due to the local policy requirements that constitute research by the Far North Queensland Human Research Ethics Committee (Reference no: EX/2023/QCH/94383‐1684QA). The justification for this exemption is as follows: the project was determined to be negligible risk research and involved the use of existing collection of data or records that contain only non‐identifiable data about human beings. Results In total, 13 818 patients (37.9% of admissions) received a MAP and 11 631 patients (32.7% of discharges) received a DMR. The proportion of MAPs and DMRs was significantly higher in rural hospitals than in regional hospitals (MAP 50.6% vs 34.6%, DMR 33.1% vs 31.3%) and for male patients than female patients (MAP 42.2% vs 33.7%, DMR 36.4% vs 29.2%). When stratified by age, First Nations patients received a higher proportion of MAPs and DMRs in each age group, except for age 85 years and over. The proportion of First Nations patients aged 50 years and over who ...