HNZ: COVID-19 Care in the Community update for primary care

Kia ora  

We would be grateful if you can pass on the following COVID-19 Care in the Community updates to your networks where relevant. 

COVID-19 Care in the Community 

• Invitations have been sent out about pharmacist training sessions on Tuesday 26 July and Wednesday 27 July from 7.30pm to 9.30pm as part of the reclassification of oral COVID-19 antiviral medicines nirmatrelvir with ritonavir (Paxlovid™) and molnupiravir (Lagevrio®) from prescription-only medicines to restricted (pharmacist-only) medicines, effective from 28 July 2022. 
• Draft guidance information on “Advance Prescriptions for Oral COVID-19 Antiviral Medicines” was distributed to the primary care sector last Friday and any feedback is welcomed to COVIDCareintheCommunity@health.govt.nz. 

COVID-19 Response 

• ESR has developed a Wastewater Surveillance Dashboard with national and regional trend data on SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater and reported COVID-19 case numbers. 
• Testing and isolation guidance for community residential care providershas been updated and covers staff, residents and visitors.  
• My Covid Record has had some cosmetic changes and looks slightly different, including pushing Report a RAT and Request a pass beside each other (on mobiles, they are under each other), and the vaccination record link is found by clicking view all vaccinations.  
• A reminder that the COVID-19 Āwhina app is the best way to stay up to date with the latest information for the health and disability sector. You’ll get regular notifications on your phone so download here.  
• The weekly COVID-19 health key messages newsletter summarises the latest health information about COVID-19 and links to online pages for more details - Subscribe here.  

COVID-19 Clinical Care Module 

• A CCCM release is scheduled for the evening of Monday 25 July.  
• Pharmacists will have access to CCCM to enable the pharmacist supply of COVID-19 therapeutics. This will capture which COVID-19 therapeutic medicine is being supplied and enable communication to GPs as well as visibility for other Care in the Community teams. 
• The NZePS button will now be available to give visibility of dispensed medications in the last 90 days.  
• The Release Notes and training materials will be updated and available via the Help button in CCCM, and to view the updated ‘Risk Score V2’ training Pack, see here. 
• The National Contact Tracing Solution team have made some minor improvements, including ensuring the Case Self-Serve codes run smoothly to reduce the need to manually generate a code. The NCTS release is scheduled for the evening of Wednesday 27^th July and there are no expected outages. 
• The Care in the Community support team are here to help you with any CitC, CCCM or NCTS questions or issues on CITC@contacttracing.health.nz 9am-5.30pm Monday- Sunday. 

Noho ora mai 

COVID Care in the Community Team

waea pūkoro: +64 27 380 9971 | īmēra: COVIDcareinthecommunity@health.govt.nz

133 Molesworth Street, Thorndon, Wellington 6011

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