New national guide launched to support medication management improvement in aged care

Medication management continues to evolve in aged care as providers strengthen governance frameworks, embed on-site pharmacists and align with national guiding principles. For many leaders, the ongoing challenge is how to coordinate improvement across multiple sites in a structured and sustainable way.

Researchers from Monash University and Flinders University have released a new practical guide designed to help senior healthcare professionals and aged care leaders establish and lead structured quality improvement collaboratives aimed at improving medication management practices.

Titled “Improving medication management together: a practical guide to establishing and leading a quality improvement collaborative,” the resource provides a step-by-step framework for designing and running a Quality Improvement Collaborative (QIC) within organisations or across regions.

A structured approach to shared improvement

Professor Simon Bell, Director of the Centre for Medicine Use and Safety at Monash University, said QICs provide a formal mechanism to turn evidence and policy into measurable practice change.

“Quality improvement collaboratives go beyond just bringing people together,” Professor Bell said.

“They provide a structured way for healthcare teams to implement changes, use data to track their progress, and learn from others on what works in practice. This helps healthcare teams to move from ideas to measurable improvement.”

The guide outlines an eight-step process, beginning with establishing an expert panel or steering group and recruiting multidisciplinary teams, through to defining a clear area for improvement, setting SMART goals, using Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles, and evaluating impact and sustainability.

It is designed to be practical rather than theoretical, providing templates, suggested timelines and measurement frameworks that can be adapted to local contexts.

Informed by national aged care experience

The guide draws on the national Maximising Embedded Pharmacists in AGed CAre Medication Advisory Committees (MEGA-MAC) trial, which brought together pharmacists and nurses across four states, supported by an expert panel of clinicians, implementation scientists and consumer representatives.

Dr Amanda Cross, senior research fellow at CMUS and co-author of the guide, said the lessons from that experience directly shaped its development.

“Our experiences from the MEGA-MAC trial demonstrated the value and potential for quality improvement collaboratives and informed the development of this step-by-step guide,” Dr Cross said.

“The MEGA-MAC quality improvement collaborative brought together pharmacists and nurses working across four states of Australia, and was supported by an expert panel of clinicians, implementation scientists and consumer representatives. It was an excellent example of how we can share ideas and work together to support implementation of best practice.”

Case examples within the guide include initiatives to improve vaccination status documentation on admission and strengthen medication processes during transitions from hospital to residential aged care . These scenarios illustrate how baseline audits, shared indicators and peer learning can support measurable change over defined timeframes.

A leadership and governance tool

Professor Kate Laver from the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University said the guide is intentionally adaptable across settings.

“For example, this guide could be used by an aged care organisation who would like to lead quality improvement activities across multiple sites, or a healthcare professional organisation or a primary health network that would like to bring teams together from various sites and organisations to improve practice,” Professor Laver said.

The framework highlights the importance of executive endorsement, appropriate resourcing, data capability, and ongoing peer learning. In this sense, it positions medication management improvement as a governance priority as much as a clinical one.

The MEGA-MAC project underpinning the guide was funded through the Commonwealth’s 2022 Medical Research Future Fund Quality, Safety and Effectiveness of Medicine Use by Pharmacists grant program.

As providers continue to refine medication governance and align with strengthened quality expectations, the authors position the guide as a practical tool to support coordinated, data-informed improvement rather than one-off initiatives.

The guide, “Improving medication management together: a practical guide to establishing and leading a quality improvement collaborative,” is available online.