Aboriginal Health Workers and pharmacists in a two‐way learning collaboration: a pilot in a metropolitan Australian hospital

Abstract Background Aboriginal Peoples experience cultural unsafety in Australian hospitals, adversely affecting access to care and medication. Hospital‐based, two‐way learning between Aboriginal Health Workers (AHWs) and pharmacists was proposed to enhance culturally safe pharmacist communication, supporting safe and effective medication practices. Aim To implement evaluate a two‐way learning program for AHWs and pharmacists, in a metropolitan hospital located in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Method The metropolitan hospital‐based two‐way learning program was co‐created by PC (Wiradjuri), SR (Bundjalung), and SW. Program implementation involved AHWs and ward‐based pharmacists visiting Aboriginal patients together during routine care. Prospective evaluation used piloted and semi‐structured electronic surveys, sent to AHWs and pharmacists after visits, were used to explore staff perceptions of the program. Quantitative results were descriptively analysed. Qualitative results were thematically analysed. Ethical approval was granted by the Human Research Ethics Committees of the Aboriginal Health & Medical Research Council of New South Wales Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) (Reference no: 1709/20: 11/5/21) and the St. Vincent's Hospital, Sydney HREC (Reference no: 2020/ETH01314) and the study conforms with the Australian National statement on ethical conduct in human research . Informed consent was obtained from all survey participants via distribution of project information indicating survey participation was voluntary and anonymous. In addition, all staff were provided with project information when two‐way learning visits were incorporated into routine care and informed their participation in visits was voluntary. Results At the time of the study, 22 pharmacists and 5 AHWs were employed at the study site. All ( n = 5) the AHWs and almost half ( n = 10) of the pharmacists participated in the two‐way learning visits and the majority of both the AHWs ( n = 4) and pharmacists ( n = 19) completed the voluntary survey. Visits increased the confidence of AHWs working with pharmacists and pharmacists in communicating with Aboriginal patients. Most AHWs ( n = 4) and pharmacists ( n = 8) that participated in two‐way learning visits reported changes in their practice and shared positive experiences. An overarching theme of ‘provision of holistic pharmaceutical care’ and four subthemes were identified: patient/family confidence, comfort, and satisfaction; improve processes/organisation; build connections with communication, rapport, and trust; and enable education and understanding about medications and culture. Conclusion Two‐way learning was transformative for almost all who took part and has continued as a part of routine care at the study site. It employed culturally appropriate methods and marked the beginning of ongoing learning opportunities between AHWs and pharmacists ultimately enhancing culturally safe patient care to enable understanding of medicines and their safe use.