Established in 2008, Medwise is a DHB-funded service that provides clinical pharmacy support to hospitals, GP clinics and community pharmacists in the Bay of Plenty.

Medicines are the most common healthcare intervention, but if they are not used in the right way, we may not get the best out of them and they may cause harm. In addition, medication errors sometimes occur.

​ ​Medication errors reduce the effectiveness and increase the potential harm of medications. Half of all medication errors occur at the interface between primary and secondary care.

Medwise is contracted to the Western Bay of Plenty Primary Health Organisation (WBoPPHO) to fund clinical pharmacist services, with a focus on reducing medicines-related harm.

Clinical pharmacy is a speciality within the pharmacy profession. Specialisation requires specific and advanced levels of education, skills and training in addition to the undergraduate university pharmacy degree.

The practice of clinical pharmacy continues to evolve and change, with an expanding range of innovative roles in New Zealand. While clinical pharmacy is long established in hospitals, clinical pharmacy in primary care is a more recent practice. Clinical Advisory pharmacists work within healthcare teams to improve equity and the quality of patient care through patient-facing and quality improvement roles.

Pharmacist Prescribers are specialist clinical pharmacists with extra training and qualifications to prescribe medications as part of the healthcare team.

Medwise clinical pharmacists are medication specialists.

The 2020 final report of the Health and Disability System Review Panel includes clinical pharmacist-led medicines optimisation among essential primary and community services that should be commissioned locally. Medwise was chosen as an example of medicines optimisation services in this review.

See more for Medwise awards, and pharmacist achievements.