Increasing Australian pharmacy's role in meeting national and international antimicrobial resistance objectives

Abstract

The 2016 G20 summit recognised the threat of antimicrobial resistance as not just a health issue, but also one that poses an economic risk to many counties and requires global efforts and collaboration to tackle. Australia is already implementing strategies to mitigate the risk of antimicrobial resistance but acknowledges that newer antibiotics are not the only solution and that more needs to be done in the primary health sector. This article explains how the pharmacy profession is positioned to help meet these needs by expanding roles and activities already undertaken by pharmacies and augmenting them to help meet the national strategy around tackling antimicrobial resistance. The factors that would need to be addressed to ensure this is done in a way that strengthens the profession and promotes collaboration with other health professions on local, national and international levels are discussed.

Where to from here? Identifying and prioritising future directions for addressing drug-resistant infection in Australia

“…The Australian National Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy calls for a collaborative effort to change practices that have contributed to the development of drug-resistance and for implementation of new initiatives to reduce antibiotic use [ 1 ]. In Australia, achievements have included an expanded role of hospital pharmacists in supporting appropriate antibiotic prescribing—now mandated in national accreditation standards [ 2 , 3 ], improvements in surveillance, including the introduction of the Antimicrobial Use and Resistance in Australia (AURA) Surveillance System [ 4 , 5 ]; the use of electronic referral applications for audit and feedback rounds [ 6 ], and the introduction of processes for incorporating antimicrobial stewardship into discharge [ 7 ]. Nevertheless, progress more broadly has been slow and novel solutions are now required for improving clinical practice and community awareness in a sustainable fashion.…”