The Hawke's Bay District Health Board is appointing eight clinical pharmacist facilitators to help GPs prescribe drugs.
The decision to create the new positions follows a successful trial in three practices - Te Mata Peak Practice, Greendale Family Health Centre and Totara Health Centre.
The pharmacists worked with GPs to provide quality prescribing for patients, especially those with more than one medical condition.
Patients involved in the trial had fewer falls, hospital admissions, emergency department presentations and had recorded greater patient satisfaction.
A secondary benefit of the trial was financial - the total cost of drugs at the practices between September 2012 and August 2013 was $5,065,625 - a 19.5 per cent saving of nearly $1 million compared with the same period the previous year.