Community pharmacist wins prestigious UTS Pharmacy award
Brooke Young was honoured at the UTS Pharmacy Gala Dinner for the pioneering, flexible, easy-to-use communications platform Clinicomm, that significantly boosted her pharmacy’s ability to provide exceptional patient care during COVID-19 and beyond.
Left to right: Martin Haigh, Brooke Young, Warwick Plunkett and Kylie Williams. Image: Maja Baska
After COVID-19 broke out in 2020, Brooke Young was quick to realise that excellent patient communication and record-keeping would be priceless information. With this in mind, she conceived and had a software platform called 'Clinicomm' built. This innovation just won her UTS Pharmacy’s prestigious Innovative Pharmacist of the Year Award.
“Clinicomm enables pharmacists to communicate with patients via SMS and email, providing them with vital post-care information, a 24/7 clinical contact number and appointment reminders,” says Brooke, a community pharmacist and a partner at Cooleman Court Pharmacy in the ACT, part of the Life Pharmacy Group.
“It has revolutionised the way we communicate with patients - both business-to-single patient but also business-to-multiple patient. For example, when the new COVID-19 booster was announced in January 2022, we used Clinicomm to send a bulk message to all eligible patients saying we were open for a walk-in clinic the following evening. We administered 450 vaccines that night. It was a quick and easy way to communicate, especially at that time when patients were so stressed.”
Since its inception, Clinicomm has remained a unique solution. It is now used in 11 pharmacies with over 40,000 patients enrolled, and over 200,000 SMS/emails sent. The platform has turned traditional transactional relationships into longitudinal ones. Implementing Clinicomm is both simple and practical and it is easy to train staff in its use. It is also easily tailored to each new pharmacy site, making it adaptable to any workflow.
Brooke's innovative contribution is particularly noteworthy because existing software platforms have primarily focused on allowing patients to book services, order and pay for their medication, and complete vaccination paperwork. However, they do not easily allow pharmacists to tailor communications to patients, nor do they provide a detailed history of patient clinical interactions with the pharmacy, as Clinicomm does.
As COVID-19 demands have softened, Brooke and Life Pharmacy Group COO, Warwick Marx, have introduced new modules into Clinicomm to accommodate different services.
I was very honoured to have been selected because there are so many innovative pharmacists out there, with many great ideas about improving patient care and the profession as a whole.
Brooke Young
Winner of the UTS Innovative Pharmacist of the Year Award, 2022
“The latest version of Clinicomm supports influenza vaccination, COVID antiviral support and ongoing wound care therapy, with the ability to take photos of wounds to track the progression of healing throughout multiple visits,” Brooke continues.
“It can then send reminders to patients (scheduled or ad hoc) to remind them to have dressings changed, etc. This functionality makes Clinicomm a highly valuable tool.”
While she knew that Clinicomm was a gamechanger, Brooke says she was incredibly surprised to learn she had won UTS Pharmacy’s Innovative Pharmacist of the Year Award.
“I was very honoured to have been selected because there are so many innovative pharmacists out there, with many great ideas about improving patient care and our profession as a whole. I’m planning to use the prize to attend as many conferences as I can. I have lots of different interest areas and am looking forward to exploring as many of them as I can.”
Professor Kylie Williams is the Head of Pharmacy at UTS and says that Brooke’s innovation ticked all the boxes for the $5,000 award, that has been generously sponsored by AstraZeneca since 2012.
“The Innovative Pharmacist of the Year Award recognises those in the profession who are redefining pharmacy and looks at originality, impact, practicality, benefits and applicability of the innovation,” she says.
“Brooke's innovative software platform has improved communication, health outcomes and patient satisfaction. The platform is very impressive. A valuable tool for any pharmacy looking to provide exceptional patient support and expand and improve their services.”
Learn more about the Innovative Pharmacist of the Year
