Weighing in on pharmacare and pharmacy innovations

As the national pharmacare debate continues across the country, attendees at the Canadian Foundation for Pharmacy’s (CFP’s) recent Innovation Showcase in Mississauga, Ontario, heard about the challenges ahead for Canada’s healthcare system. “Canadian governments of all stripes—left, centre, right—are under enormous healthcare cost pressures in finding new ways to deliver care,” said keynote speaker Jeffrey Simpson, journalist and former national affairs columnist for The Globe and Mail. It’s a task that is particularly difficult, he said, because Canada’s healthcare system is full of entrenched interest groups who have shaped it over a long period of time to suit their needs. “And they are not going to give those things up easily.”Just as medicare “didn’t fall from the sky overnight,” Simpson says we are at the early stages of pharmacare with many more questions and debates to come. “To replace private plans and expand public ones will cost billions of dollars,” he says, noting that the Parliamentary Budget Office estimates that to be about $11 billion by 2027. “What we can’t say is if we go down this path it will be less costly than what we have…but it could be more fair and overall, a social good.”He pointed to the fact that 82% of medications are the same on nine provincial formularies, yet each province negotiates separately on behalf of taxpayers. Instead, provinces should be collectively negotiating, he said, to use their purchasing power to bring prices down. “Your patients could be better served if that’s what you do,” said Simpson. “What we’re doing at the moment seems to be very counterproductive.”Along with Simpson, CFP’s past Innovation fund recipients took the stage to provide updates on their pharmacy research projects. Last year’s fund recipient Joey Champigny spoke about his study with pharmacist Jeff Nagge to prove the value of community pharmacist-managed warfarin therapy in lowering risk of stroke, systemic embolization, venous thromboembolism and hemmorage. “Our aim with this project is to compare not only the efficacy of pharmacist-managed warfarin therapy but the safety in doing so…and to show that it should be the gold standard,” he said. “As someone who works in anticoagulation, I know about all the good work [pharmacists] do.”The audience also heard updates from Innovation Fund recipient Beth Sproule, who studied a program to help pharmacists better support patients using medical cannabis, and Karen Riley, who spoke to the additional drug-related problems flagged when community pharmacists use electronic screening tools during medication reviews. Find more on CFP’s Innovation Fund recipients. Read: The seven recommendations from the Cannabis Act review healthcare professionals should know.

Weighing in on pharmacare and pharmacy innovations

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