Medicines Optimisation
Medicines play a crucial role in maintaining health, preventing illness, managing chronic conditions and curing disease. Medicines optimisation is a person centred approach to safe and effective medicines use to ensure that people obtain the best possible outcomes from their medicines.
A Northern Ireland Medicines Optimisation Quality Framework (MOQF) was published in 2016, with the aim to support better health and wellbeing for all people in Northern Ireland through improvements in the appropriate safe and effective use of medicines.
The Framework sets the strategic direction for improvement in the use of medicines across the HSC across four areas focussed on medicines safety, innovation, workforce and efficiencies.
The MOQF promotes multidisciplinary working with the integration of pharmacists helping patients gain the best possible outcome from their medicines every time that they are prescribed, dispensed or administered.
The Medicines Optimisation Quality Framework
The MOQF has the following components:
- A Regional Medicines Optimisation Model which outlines what should be done at each stage of the patient journey to help gain the best outcomes from medicines.
- Quality Standards which describe what patients can expect when medicines are included as part of their treatment. These standards address the priority issues for medicines optimisation in Northern Ireland within the three overarching quality domains of safety, effectiveness and patient/client focus.
- An Integrated and Innovation Change Programme applying a strategic approach to support and drive continuous improvement through the development and implementation of best practice in medicines optimisation.
The Medicines Optimisation Quality Framework
This short animated video about Medicines Optimisation describes how the Medicines Optimisation Quality Framework and the Medicines Optimisation Innovation Centre (MOIC) are supporting quality improvement in medicines use for patients and sharing best practices from Northern Ireland across Europe.