1. John Kristiansen Angela Lambie Project Managers
Quality Use of Medicines Team
Waitemata DHB
Good afternoon
John and I are both pharmacists on the Quality use of Medicines team at Waitemata DHB
John started SafeRx in 2007, and I have been managing it for the past 2 years.
Today we are going to talk to you about SafeRx and what we have achieved from the challenge.
We are happy to take questions at the end.

2. The SafeRx story Aim to improve awareness about high risk medicines
Developed bulletins and patient guides for primary care
Website
GP Practice Management Software links
Evaluated by School of Pharmacy
SafeRx began following an urgency to promote key messages about high-risk medicines to primary care teams.
In a nutshell, SafeRx is about producing resource materials about medicines
We invited primary care teams in the Waitemata District to sign up and receive bulletins and patient cards on a regular basis.
The resources were available on our website and via links from GP practice management software which I will show you soon.
SafeRx was evaluated by the School of Pharmacy in 2010.

3. The SafeRx® resources
The bulletins are written using our unique SafeRx branding which we have trademarked.
Short practice points are on one-side of A4 which link through to more detailed, fully referenced ‘Full information sheets’.
We have bulletins for 16 high risk medicines and other resources including dosing guidelines.
Patient guides are available for 7 of our high risk medicines (hard copy and printable pdfs from the website)
We write, and distribute 2 peer reviewed bulletins every 2months via and store them on our website…

4.
As you can see our website was simple but functional

5. GP Practice Management Software
The resources could also be accessed via Medtech GPs software
A link directs GPs to the SafeRx site so they can read the bulletin if they enter a ‘high-risk’ medicine.

6. Enter HQSC Share regionally Increase capacity of database
Include new PMS provider
Contact/visit all PHOs in the region
Thanks to the Health and Quality Challenge we were able to invite all primary care teams within Northern Region DHBs to join.
We signed up to a provider of database software to make our distribution simple and effective.
We approached another GP software provider My Practice to include SafeRx links
We contacted all of the PHOs and met with most of them personally, to discuss how SafeRx would be best communicated to their Primary Care teams.

7.
We upgraded our website, and incorporated a direct ‘sign-up’ function
We formalised our peer review process, and continued to distribute bulletins and patient cards.

8. New Zealand Formulary
We were approached by the NZF to include SafeRx links

9. Healthcare media
We actively promoted the project via healthcare media including pharmacy today, NZ doctor and the Primary Care News (sent to ADHB, CMDHB and WDHB primary care teams).

10. The SafeRxers 900 members on the SafeRx® database
GPs, pharmacies, nurses/midwives/practice managers
Over 300 unique visitors to each month
Following the Challenge, our database has more than doubled, and we have tripled the number of unique visits to our website each month

11. SafeRx® beyond the challenge
Successfully implemented regionally
Scalable to a national level
Endorsement by New Zealand Formulary
We now have the infrastructure to roll out nationally.
The high opt-in rate demonstrates there is interest and demand for these resources
We think that our non-invasive, inclusive approach, with strong branding, a focus on quality has made SafeRx work.
Thanks to the endorsement and funding from the HQSC, SafeRx has been successfully rolled out in the Northern Region, so with a little bit more effort, this could become a national initiative.