Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre

Consumer-driven, data-informed research, effective in improving use of medicines and improving patient lives

The Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre (QUMPRC) specialises in improving use of medicines.

Home to a wide community of expert researchers with close connections to policy makers, consumers and health professionals, our research ranges from large-scale data analytics and developing new models of healthcare to the translation of evidence into policy and practice.

We work with and alongside consumers, health professionals, and organisations to ensure the solutions and methods developed within our centre find their way into policy and practice to improve people’s lives.

Our research focuses on six key areas: medicines safety, optimising medicine use, digital health, pharmacy practice, Aboriginal traditional medicines, and evidence translation and policy.

Explore our research

Discover our research, guided by the principles of the quality use of medicines and a commitment to better outcomes for consumers and health professionals.

Engage with us

With an extensive record of effective research, QUMPRC collaborates with consumers, policymakers, healthcare professionals, and students.

Explore the Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre

Research capabilities Research capabilities
Research impact Research impact
Our people Our people
Our partners Our partners

We deliver world-leading research with and for people who use medicines.

Our six research strands reflect our commitment to consumers, health professionals, and policy makers, in developing and investigating ways to improve the use of medicines.

Quality use of medicines, medicines safety and pharmacovigilance

Working with consumers, practitioners, health organisations, and national agencies, we develop and test evidence-based solutions to reduce harm from medicines.

Optimising medicine use

Our research centre has more than two decades of experience in identifying problems with medicines use and promoting behaviour change to optimise medicine use.

Digital health, data, and medicines

Digital technologies are profoundly changing the healthcare landscape. This applied research area uses and develops digital health methods to advance medicine safety and improve use of medicines.

Pharmacy practice

Pharmacists play a key role in ensuring medicine safety and appropriate use of medicines. Our research investigates the effectiveness of new pharmacy practices in improving patient outcomes.

Aboriginal traditional medicines

This research area, led by Aboriginal communities, is focused on the ethical and culturally appropriate study of Aboriginal medicines, the identification of pharmacologically active compounds and the measurement of their effect.

Evidence translation and policy

This area of research is specialised in promoting large-scale transformation of research into practice and promoting medicine policies and guidelines that are both globally relevant and locally appropriate.

All our research endeavours are guided by the principles of the quality use of medicines, which are:

Primacy of the consumer
Partnership
Consultative, collaborative, multidisciplinary activity
Support for existing activity, and
Systems-based approaches.

The QUMPRC has earned a national and international reputation for its work in quality use of medicines, medicine safety, pharmacoepidemiology and medicines policy.

Just some examples of our impact include:

The Lancet Commission for accelerating access to essential medicines

Working with international pharmaceutical policy leaders to identify progress made and recommended actions to further progress access to essential medicines for the world’s people.

2025 UN General Assembly Science Summit

Providing information to the world’s leaders about global data analytics and the potential for improved health care.

Using data to understand risks during the COVID-19 pandemic

Collaborating with 300 researchers across the globe to search the data for evidence about how blood-pressure medicines might be involved in modifying the susceptibility to and severity of COVID-19 in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. We found compelling evidence that popular anti-hypertension medicines do not increase risks of a then-unknown disease.

Digital health

Reducing medicine-induced deterioration and adverse reactions for older people living in residential aged care through wearable device technology, as well as developing predictive biomarkers for identifying future health conditions.

Data-driven public policy

We quantified medicine related harm in Australia, finding there are 250,000 hospitalisations annually due to problems with medicines. This evidence underpinned the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Health Council decision to make Quality Use of Medicines and Medicines Safety the tenth National Health Priority Area in 2019.

Aboriginal medicinal plants

Collaborating with the traditional custodians of the Northern Kaanju Ngaachi (homelands) on the Cape York Peninsula, and the Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation to investigate native plants as sources for medicine and nutrition, as well as building greater cultural awareness.

QUMPRC executive team

Bradley Distinguished Professor Libby Roughead

Director Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre
Email: Libby.Roughead@unisa.edu.au

Professor Nicole Pratt

Deputy Director Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre
Email: Nicole.Pratt@unisa.edu.au

With an extensive record of driving and delivering effective research, QUMPRC is the ideal centre and partner to help you answer challenging questions related to the policy, practice and use of medicines.

Policy makers

In the age of data and transparency, policy making needs empirical and scientifically sound evidence. We can assist policy decision making by providing our expertise in data analysis, our clinical knowledge in medicine and pharmacy, and our vast experience with policy consultancy.

Health professionals and healthcare organisations

Medication-related hospital admissions cost $1.4 billion per year in Australia. The pathway to prevent medication-related problem is multidimensional and involves consumer and health professional engagement as well as changes in service delivery and regulatory and organisational structures. With more than two decades of experience running one of the most successful population interventions for quality use of medicine, we can provide effective methods to improve health outcomes.

By undertaking consumer and health professional engagement and using modern methods for data analysis, coupled with current technologies and interventions grounded in theories for behaviour change, we support consumers and health professionals in efforts to improve health care.

Postgraduate students

QUMPRC is an exciting centre to help develop your skills and expertise in any area in which we work and in which you are interested. The centre is home to a broad range of projects, with globally recognised expertise in large scale analytics, behaviour change, policy, and safety with direct impact on hundreds of thousands of lives in Australia and globally.

We offer a research environment with highly experienced and engaged supervisors, extensive connections to industry, government and communities, and a focus on addressing globally significant issues. We are committed to ensuring that research degree candidates experience excellent and contemporary research training and that they graduate with a skill set that improves their employment prospects.

Contact us

Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre

Location
Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre
Adelaide University
City Campus East, Adelaide SA 5000

Email: medicines.advice@unisa.edu.au