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Useful information about Prescribing Medicines

See Medicines Information Intranet site

Who to call

Mon-Fri 0800-1630h

  • Usual ward/service pharmacist at Te Toka Tumai (contact details on every ward)

  • Medicines Information

Out-of-hours

  • On-call pharmacist via switchboard

Clinical Pharmacists

  • At Te Toka Tumai most wards have a pharmacist who will visit the ward on a regular basis

  • The clinical pharmacist will prioritise patients to check and monitor inpatient drug therapy and can also help with medicines reconciliation, discharge planning, and patient counselling

Reference viewer

  • The Reference Viewer is an online resource for accessing information about medicines. It utilises the New Zealand Formulary (NZF) and also contains links to Te Toka Tumai medicine-related documents (e.g. Medicines Administration Guidelines, protocols etc.). It is available directly through the intranet (link is on the home page). The Reference Viewer can also be accessed through the "Applications" section in Regional Clinical Portal (RCP). Use the NZ Formulary link within the Reference Viewer to access:

    • Interaction checker o Prescribing restrictions (e.g. Infectious Disease only, etc.)

    • Subsidy status on discharge o Special Authority requirements

    • Links to drug company data sheets and patient information leaflets (CMI)

Medicines information service

  • Available to answer any medicine-related questions. If you can’t find the information you need in the Reference Viewer then contact Medicines Information (listed as Medicines Info Service Te Toka Tumai in global address book).

  • The Medicines Information intranet site contains a wide range of useful information. It has been designed so that information more relevant for prescribers is grouped together and has quick links to commonly used references such as the NZ Formulary and Medicines Administration Guidelines.

Medicines history (MH) and reconciliation (MR)

The Medicines History process uses a minimum of two different sources (e.g. patient, patient's own medicines, community pharmacy, rest home or GP) to obtain and verify a medication history on admission, and the reconciliation aims to ensure that the appropriate medicines are continued during the patient’s hospital stay and that any changes to the admission medicines are clearly documented and communicated.

This process aims to reduce medication errors that may occur from incorrect medicines being prescribed and from medicines being omitted.

If there are electronic MH and MR forms on RCP, please reconcile it as soon as possible to minimise harm from unintended discrepancies. Contact the Clinical Pharmacist if you have any questions about the MR process

TestSafe Pharmacy

Community Pharmacy dispensing records from the Auckland region can be accessed via RCP. These dispensing records are an important resource that can be used in the MR process. Access the records via the 'By Service' tab within the results section of RCP. Select ‘Pharmacy’ and then select ‘Recent Summary’.

NOTE: There are a number of limitations to this data. The information may be incomplete as patients and pharmacies can opt out of contributing to the data storage, resulting in some medications being missed out or incorrect. In addition, TestSafe data does not provide information on whether the dispensed medication was picked up by the patient, nor whether the patient takes all medicines exactly as prescribed.

Please ensure you read the data limitations, which are accessible on the Recent Summary page.