Medicines Advice Initiative Australia (MAIA) is a consortium dedicated to improving the use of medicines and related health services in Australia. MAIA provides high quality, data-driven educational materials for health professionals, to aid them in solving pressing current issues around medicine use.
This consortium is led by the Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre at the University of South Australia.
The consortium will develop resources that target a specific health care problem and make them available to all General Practitioners in Australia. Specific resources will be created for health professionals working in Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs) through NACCHO, credentialed pharmacists through PSA, and hospitals and health service organisations through CATAG.
Supported by the educational intervention, MAIA aims to create positive interactions with the broader health system, by a Primary Health Network (PHN) engagement strategy, the development of data driven innovations and research comparing the effectiveness of different educational messaging. These initiatives will enhance the program, improve the usefulness of the interventions and enable digital tools to support GPs, ACCHOs, pharmacists and health organisations to effect change in their patient population.
CATAG will produce medicine stewardship toolkits for Medicines and Therapeutics Advisory Committees.
These will include a practice tool to enable the sharing of resources for implementation in medicines stewardship programs at a local level to promote safe and appropriate prescribing. These resources aim to address issues in primary care, supporting hospital and health services to put practice and policy into place to support transitions of care.
The teaching tool is for use by clinical educators in teaching sessions for medical officers, nurses, pharmacists, and students. It provides a clinical examples for the different MAIA topics.