Aust Fam Physician
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Patients' safe and effective use of medicines could be far lower than many doctors would like to believe. The Home Medicines Review (HMR) program was introduced into the Australian Medicare Benefits Schedule in 2001 to increase the appropriate use of medicines and reduce the incidence of adverse events. To date, the uptake of this program has been slow. ⋯ The HMR is a simple and effective way of improving a patient's appropriate use of medicines. It involves the general practitioner, community pharmacist and an accredited pharmacist working together to assess and educate the patient on safe and effective medication use. The process can be effectively streamlined to provide maximum efficiency utilising computerisation. The bottom line is improved patient outcomes through teamwork and improved communication.
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Australian waters contain a variety of venomous creatures, including jellyfish, stinging fish, blue-ringed octopus, sea snakes, cone snails and stingrays. ⋯ Even though mortality from these envenomations is low, there is a high level of morbidity especially with stonefish and other stinging fish envenomations. Some envenomations, however, are serious enough to require antivenom treatment and deaths still occasionally occur.