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The Practice Review Program is fully underway in community pharmacies across the province. As Compliance Officers conduct more practice reviews, they are noticing opportunities for the College to provide clarification to pharmacy professionals on selected areas of common concern.
This installment of Practice Review Program Insights focuses on the requirement of keeping an up-to-date policy and procedure manual.
The policy and procedure manual is the cornerstone document for a pharmacy. It serves as a communication and training tool, a reference for operational standards to help ensure consistent delivery of pharmacy services, and it guides staff in the event of an unfamiliar situation. A good manual also helps regular and relief staff recognize potential issues and outlines the steps to resolve issues when they arise. Whether you are operating a one-man shop or managing a larger pharmacy, a properly documented policy and procedure manual promotes compliance with operational and practice standards and ensures patient safety.
A comprehensive policy and procedure manual for community pharmacy should include but not be limited to the following areas:
- verification of the identity and registration status of individuals applying for pharmacist or pharmacy technician positions prior to employment;
- specific duties to be performed by registrants and pharmacy assistants;
- inventory management, product selection, and proper destruction of unusable drugs and devices;
- reporting and documentation on known, alleged and suspected errors, incidents and discrepancies.
- written drug recall procedure in place for pharmacy inventory;
- confidentiality with respect to all pharmacy and patient records in accordance with all applicable legislation; and
- reasonable security arrangements in respect of unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure or disposal of personal information kept on the pharmacy premises.
Additional policies and procedures must be established for telepharmacies, pharmacies that perform centralized prescription processing, and/or compounding. Please refer to the College’s Professional Practice Policies for more information on these practice areas.
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