3.03 | PRESCRIBER AND DISPENSER TRAINING - High-risk clinical scenarios

Completion of this module will enable prescribers and pharmacists to understand the clinical application of QScript’s high-risk clinical scenarios and the related notification function. This module will discuss each high-risk clinical scenario where a patient may be at risk of serious harms associated with the use of monitored medicines. 

Under the Medicines and Poisons Act 2019 relevant practitioners (medical practitioners, pharmacists and intern pharmacists, nurse practitioners, endorsed midwives, dentists, podiatric surgeons and endorsed podiatrists) are required to check QScript before prescribing, dispensing or giving a treatment dose of a monitored medicine for a patient (unless an exemption applies under Schedule 18, Part 1A of the Medicines and Poisons (Medicines) Regulation 2021). Separately, all prescribers and dispensers providing monitored medicine treatment to a patient currently registered on the Queensland Opioid Treatment Program (QOTP) must comply with the minimum requirements stipulated in the Monitored Medicines Standard, if prescribing a monitored medicine for dispensing or for giving a treatment dose, or if dispensing a monitored medicine for the patient. 

By the end of this module, learners will be able to identify appropriate clinical strategies when alerted by QScript to high-risk clinical scenario's: 

• A – patient is currently registered on the Queensland Opioid Treatment Program (QOTP).
• B - patient was previously registered on the Queensland Opioid Treatment Program (QOTP)
• C - patient receiving monitored medicines from multiple prescribers
• D - increased patient overdose risk— average total daily opioids of 100mg oral morphine equivalent (OME) or greater
• E - increased patient overdose risk—opioid and benzodiazepine / z-drug (zopiclone and zolpidem) combination
• F - patient receiving an opioid or benzodiazepine / z-drug for the first time in 90 days