Over the weekend of January 21-22, 2017, Fraser Health hosted a hackathon with the goal of creating innovative solutions to some of the most pressing issues plaguing healthcare today.
Patients in British Columbia have the right to choose the pharmacy and pharmacy professional they receive services from. This right enables them to transfer their prescriptions between pharmacies at their own discretion. In the event of a transfer request, both pharmacies are expected to facilitate to process in a way that ensures adequate continuity of care.
Everyone wants our health care system to provide good quality services, at the right time and place. Patients, like health care providers, have a vested interest in improving health care services, both as an end user and taxpayer. Engaging those patients to work alongside health care providers to improve the system is called “Patient Engagement”.
Occasionally, in community pharmacy practice, prescription products are prepared, but not picked up by the patient or the patient’s representative. During Pharmacy Practice Reviews, Compliance Officers observe how these medications and accompanying patient information are managed.
Finding safe online pharmacies and pharmacy-related websites can be difficult. In an effort to provide consumers with an easy way to identify legitimate online pharmacies among the ever-growing number of rogue internet drug outlets, the .Pharmacy Top-Level Domain Program was created by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy® (NABP®).
Preparing prescription products and performing final product checks are two important tasks performed by registrants across many different pharmacy practice settings. Establishing clear requirements for these tasks minimizes the risk of errors, reducing the likelihood of drug-related harm to patients and thus protecting public safety.
PharmaNet is a valuable tool for protecting public safety that allows pharmacy professionals to review a patient’s complete medication history and check a prescription for drug allergies and harmful drug interactions before dispensing medication. However, with access to patient information comes the responsibility to uphold legislative requirements and ethical obligations for patient privacy and confidentiality.
Election season has come to a close, and not just for the U.S. The College Board held elections across half of its electoral districts and also elected a new Chair and Vice-Chair.
Our 125th Anniversary year was both productive and dynamic for pharmacy in BC. And as we get set to welcome 2017, we are reflecting on all the hard work done by the College over the past year. From a new name, to time-delay safes, incentives, naloxone, the Practice Review Program, and many more issues and initiatives, we have progressed significantly since 2015.
Pharmacists sometimes ask what they can do to improve their work with First Nations clients. This is an excellent question given the changing climate of the pharmacy profession. As our scope of practice continues to expand, we have an opportunity to be active participants in the decolonization of health services for First Nations people.