Assisting Remote Area Nurses to prevent and respond to pharmaceutical opioid-related problems

June 2019

NCETA partnered with Flinders University’s Centre for Remote Health to conduct a webinar for Remote Area Nurses enrolled in the online Pharmacotherapeutics course. The nine-week Pharmacotherapeutics short course, coordinated by the Centre for Remote Health, is designed to assist registered nurses to develop the knowledge and skills to ensure medicines are used appropriately, effectively, judiciously and safely within a nurse’s legislated scope of practice in remote settings. Approximately 120 registered nurses throughout Australia are enrolled in the course.

As part of the webinar conducted by NCETA’s Roger Nicholas, course attendees were provided with a copy of NCETA’s Responding to Pharmaceutical Opioid-related Problems: A resource for prescribers. They were also given information on:

  • Patterns, uses and problems associated with pharmaceutical opioids
  • What works in responding to persistent non-cancer pain
  • Assessing pharmaceutical opioid problems
  • Strategies for responding to / managing opioid-related problems.

Mr Nicholas’ webinar was extremely well received. It was also recorded and will be shown to nurses unable to attend the webinar and to future course participants.