A culturally competent pharmacy profession will reduce health disparities
Moemoeiitia te moemoea, engari whakatinanahia
Dream the dream, but achieve it also
The Otago School of Pharmacy supports the Pharmacy Council's new recertification requirement for cultural competence CPD. We agree that the profession is perfectly placed to make a real difference to health outcomes of Māori, Pasifika and other priority populations.
It is really important, therefore, that each pharmacist demonstrates all the behaviours encompassed in competencies M 1.4 Practise Pharmacy within New Zealand's Culturally Diverse Environment and Understanding Hauora Māori and M1.5: Understanding Hauora Māori. We encourage our members to select CPD learning that improves patient-centred care of people whose cultures differ from them.
The requirement will be partially implemented in March 2019 and fully implemented in March 2020.
In each three-year CPO cycle, practising pharmacists must complete at least 18 points of learning in one or both of the competencies M1.4 and M1.5: Practise Pharmacy within New Zealand's Culturally Diverse Environment and Understanding Hauora Māori. Of the 18 points, 8 must be Group 2 learning and at least some points must focus on Hauora Māori.
The Otago School of Pharmacy is a member of the Pharmacy Reference Group for Implementation of Strategy for Māori Health (PRISM) which was instrumental in development of the new requirement.
Council will provide more information through 2017 about implementation of the new recertification requirement. Starting now, we encourage you to talk about how you have improved your practice as a result of becoming more competent in working with patients and customers of different cultures. Council would love to hear about transformations in your practice that result from strengthening your cultural competencies and which celebrate the important role pharmacists are playing-hi improving health outcomes. Tell us your stories and we'll pass them on! Council will monitor the increase in CPD related to competencies M1.4 and M1.5. It is working closely with the Society to ensure that ENHANCE will soon allow pharmacists to record that learning has had a significant component of cultural competence.
Read the Pharmacy Council's call to action and October Newsletter for further information.