National Medicines Symposium 2024

The theme of this year’s National Medicines Symposium is Ageing well: safe medicines, better lives. It will be held online on 19 November 2024, with a focus on the safe and appropriate use of medicines in an ageing population. Registration is free for all participants.

As the population ages, more people are living with multiple chronic diseases and taking multiple medicines (polypharmacy), often initiated by multiple prescribers. While polypharmacy is sometimes necessary and appropriate, the more medicines that a person uses, the greater the risk of adverse effects and drug–drug interactions. In frail older people, polypharmacy is associated with increased risks of serious harms such as delirium, falls, cognitive impairment and hospitalisation. Therefore, managing medicines in the older population requires a complex balance between managing the diseases they are prescribed for and avoiding harms associated with their use.

Some aims of the symposium are to:

• share strategies and approaches to improve care for older people living with multiple conditions requiring multiple medicines
• showcase evidence-based approaches to safely deprescribe high-risk medicines and reduce medication-related harm
• highlight how digital health tools and improved digital literacy can empower consumers and healthcare providers to manage medicines more safely and effectively.

Key speakers and topics include:

• Professor Libby Roughead (Director of the Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre, University of South Australia) who will set the scene with a keynote address on the National Medicines Policy and history of quality use of medicines in Australia
• Professor Jennifer Martin (Physician, Clinical Pharmacologist and President, Royal Australasian College of Physicians) who will present the clinician’s perspective on managing medicines for an ageing population
• Professor Sarah Hilmer (Geriatrician and Head, Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Royal North Shore Hospital) and Dr Lisa Kouladjian O’Donnell (Deputy Chair, Australian Deprescribing Network) who will address the importance of deprescribing medicines and the best approaches for older Australians
• Professor Melissa Baysari (Professor of Human Factors, The University of Sydney) who will discuss the use of digital systems to support safe use of medicines.

The symposium is being hosted by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. More details and how to register online are available on the National Medicines Symposium website.