Utilising a 'Community of Practice' to support pharmacists to work in residential aged care: protocol for a longitudinal evaluation.

INTRODUCTION: A Community of Practice is briefly defined as a group of people with a shared interest in a given area of practice who work collaboratively to grow collective knowledge. Communities of Practice have been used to facilitate knowledge exchange and improve evidence-based practice. Knowledge translation within the residential aged care sector is lacking, with barriers such as inadequate staffing and knowledge gaps commonly cited. In Australia, a Federal inquiry into residential aged care practices led to a recommendation to embed pharmacists within residential aged care facilities. Onsite practice in aged care is a new role for pharmacists in Australia. Thus, support is needed to enable pharmacists to practice in this role.The primary aim is to evaluate the processes and outcomes of a Community of Practice designed to support pharmacists to work in aged care. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A longitudinal, single-group, pretest-post-test design in which the intervention is a Community of Practice. The Community of Practice will be established and made available for 3 years to all Australian pharmacists interested in, new to or established in aged care roles. The Community of Practice will be hosted on online discussion platforms, with additional virtual meetings and annual symposia. The following data will be collected from all members of the Community of Practice: self-evaluation of the processes and outcomes of the Community of Practice (via the CoPeval scale) and confidence in evidence-based practice (EPIC scale), collected via online questionnaires annually; and discussion platform usage statistics and discussion transcripts. A subset of members will be invited to participate in annual semi-structured individual interviews.Data from the online questionnaire will be analysed descriptively. Discussion transcripts will be analysed using topic modelling and content analysis to identify the common topics discussed and their frequencies. Qualitative data from individual interviews will be thematically analysed to explore perceptions and experiences with the intervention for information/knowledge exchange, impact on practice, and sharing/promoting/implementing evidence-based practice. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Human ethics approval has been granted by the University of Western Australia's Human Ethics Committee (2023/ET000000). No personal information will be included in any publications and reports to funding bodies.Findings will be disseminated to all members of the Community of Practice, professional organisations, social and mass media, peer-review journals, research and professional conferences and annual reports to the funding body.

Behaviours that contribute to pharmacist professionalism: a scoping review.

OBJECTIVES: Clearly understanding and describing professional behaviours of pharmacists allows the profession, researchers and policy-makers to observe and monitor the professionalism of pharmacists, and design interventions to improve it where needed. The primary objective of this review was to identify which behaviours are discussed to contribute to professionalism in registered pharmacists in peer-reviewed literature. The secondary objective was to review the identified behaviours using a behavioural specification framework to understand how they are expressed. DESIGN: A scoping literature review was conducted. DATA SOURCES: An electronic database search of Scopus, Embase, PsycINFO, PsychArticles, Emcare and Medline limited to articles published in English from 1 January 2000 to 21 October 2022 was conducted. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: Eligible articles contributed behaviourally relevant content with reference to registered pharmacists' professionalism. DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS: Extracted behaviourally relevant content was subject to researcher's familiarisation, then deductive coding to one of two overarching definitions of technical or non-technical behaviour. Data were then inductively coded through assignment of a descriptive code to identify categories of professional behaviour within these two overarching types of behaviour. RESULTS: Seven articles were identified and included in the final analysis. From the extracted behaviourally relevant content, 18 categories of behaviours were identified. All articles identified behaviours in categories titled 'establishes effective relationships' and 'complies with regulations codes and operating procedures'. Identified behaviours were often broadly described and merged with descriptions of influences on them and broader outcomes that they contribute to. CONCLUSIONS: Behaviours described to contribute to pharmacists' professionalism in the literature are broad and non-specific.

Exploring the enablers and barriers to implementing the Medication Appropriateness Tool for Comorbid Health conditions during Dementia (MATCH-D) criteria in Australia: a qualitative study.

OBJECTIVES: The Medication Appropriateness Tool for Comorbid Health conditions in Dementia (MATCH-D) criteria provide expert consensus guidance about medication use for people with dementia. This study aimed to identify enablers and barriers to implementing the criteria in practice. SETTING: Participants came from both rural and metropolitan communities in two Australian states. PARTICIPANTS: Focus groups were held with consumers, general practitioners, nurses and pharmacists. OUTCOMES: data were analysed thematically. RESULTS: Nine focus groups were conducted. Fifty-five participants validated the content of MATCH-D, appraising them as providing patient-centred principles of care. Participants identified potential applications (including the use of MATCH-D as a discussion aid or educational tool for consumers about medicines) and suggested supporting resources. CONCLUSION: Participants provided insights into applying MATCH-D in practice and suggested resources to be included in an accompanying toolkit. These data provide external validation of MATCH-D and an empiric basis for their translation to practice. Following resource development, we plan to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of implementation in practice.