Consumer involvement in Quality Use of Medicines (QUM) projects – lessons from Australia

Using the web-based QUMmap, all projects which claimed consumer involvement were identified and stratified into four categories, projects undertaken by; (a) consumers for consumers, (b) health professionals for consumers, (c) health professionals for health professionals, and (d) other. Projects in the first two categories were then classified according to the policy 'building blocks' considered necessary to achieve QUM.Of the 143 'consumer' projects identified, the majority stated to be 'for consumers' were either actually by health professionals for health professionals (c) or by health professionals for consumers (b) (47% and 40% respectively). Only 12 projects (9%) were directly undertaken by consumers or consumer groups for consumers (a). The majority of the health professionals for consumers (b) projects were directed at the provision of services and interventions, but were not focusing on the education, training or skill development of consumers.Health services research relating to QUM is active in Australia and the projects are collated and searchable on the web-based interactive QUMmap. Healthcare professionals appear to be dominating nominally 'consumer focussed' research, with less than half of these projects actively involving the consumers or directly benefiting consumers. The QUMmap provides a valuable tool for policy analysis and for provision of future directions through identification of QUM initiatives.Many of the findings of health services research are never published in peer-reviewed journals nor presented at a conference [1,2]. There may be many reasons for this, including that such projects are often small, the researchers often hold clinical or service positions and their research time is minimal or non-existent, or the results did not eventuate 'as intended' [1]. A lot of potential 'lessons learned' are lost to future researchers, there is a risk that an unsuccessful study may be replicated, the researchers themselves lose an opportunity to