QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN PHARMACY (QIIP)
BACKGROUND
The Guild administers a Quality Care Pharmacy Program ('QCPP' or 'the Program') which is an industry developed quality assurance program. The Pharmacy Operator has been accredited in accordance with the Rules of the Program.
(Rule 24: The pharmacy will participate in other assessments of service e.g. SMA visit, assessment without notice or random assessments endorsed by QCPP and limited to a maximum of six assessments per year. The pharmacy agrees to use its best endeavours to obtain all necessary consents associated with other assessments. Any assessment associated with a sanction is not to be counted in this limit of six ‘other assessments’- refer to information on the QCPP website).
Under the QCPP Rules, an SMA visit may be conducted from time to time to monitor and assess the Pharmacy. This may involve a person visiting the Pharmacy and acting as a patient (mystery shopper). During an SMA Assessment, a mystery shopper might ordinarily use a listening device to record the mystery shopper’s conversations with the Pharmacy Operator and/or pharmacy staff.
The results of the SMA Assessment and a record of any conversations will be provided to representatives of the Quality Improvement in Pharmacy ('QIIP") consortium from the Australian College of Pharmacy Practice & Management and the University of Queensland.
WHY DO WE CONDUCT SMA VISITS?
Since the program started we have been able to demonstrate a significant improvement in our compliance with the Pharmacy Medicine and Pharmacist Only Medicines (S2/S3) protocols. These are the protocols all pharmacy assistants undergo training to obtain the S2/S3 Certificate to prepare for accreditation.
Continued improvement will be used as evidence that the scheduling of these medicines provides benefits to the Australian community.
Since the introduction of QCPP to Australian pharmacy in 1998 the value of the program has continued to impress innovative pharmacists and third-parties such as government.
This value was demonstrated in the Evaluation of the Program (2002–2005) which showed:
- Consumers generally reported a higher quality of service from accredited pharmacies
- Accredited pharmacies reported an improvement in staff morale and empowerment as a result of the QCPP implementation process
For your QCPP program to succeed it is necessary that all staff 'live' the program on a ‘day-to-day’ basis.
- QCPP helps pharmacies improve all aspects of their business by implementing the highest quality standards.
- You then measure, review and improve performance consistently over time. One of the
- ways that we help you to achieve this is through the mystery shopper visits.
- The visits help continuous quality improvement by giving feedback to staff. This can then be
- used for ongoing staff training.
- This helps you improve your performance in assisting customers with their needs.
- That’s why we now call the activity ‘Quality Improvement in Pharmacy (QIIP)’.
This ensures that we retain the current privileges that support pharmacy sale of medicines and ownership.
The Guild is also required to report to the National Coordinating Committee on Therapeutic Goods on the aggregate SMA data, as well as on the ‘quality’ of the advice given in an SMA visit.
This activity will help to retain the schedules in their present state.
In scoring the interaction, we use a combination of the mystery shopper scoring and validation by a trained pharmacist who also checks the mystery shopper’s interpretation of the interaction.
Data provided to external parties is de-identified aggregate data only.
Telephone: 1800 723 605Email: QIIP@pharmacyquality.info
