Thank you very much.
Thank you for the opportunity to present to you today.
I'm the executive director of the Canadian Pharmacists Association. We are the national voluntary professional association representing Canadian pharmacists. Our members practise in the community, in hospital, in academia, and in industry.
Earlier presentations to this committee have advocated the need for a pan-Canadian health human resource strategy and have introduced the concept of the need for a national HHR institute or observatory. We, as the Canadian Pharmacists Association, would certainly support those proposals. However, in this presentation, I want to highlight three things from our submission that are innovations required to promote recruitment and retention of pharmacists in health care.
First, pharmacists want satisfying, meaningful jobs, and this means an expanded role for pharmacists in the health care system. Second, to develop these, we need investment in training places in the practice setting. Third, we have to move to become more self-sufficient and reduce our dependence on pharmacists who have been trained outside of Canada.
Pharmacists are experts in ensuring medications are used safely and rationally. It's clear that patients need help getting the best from their medications and that the health care system would gain through improvements in the safety and quality of drug use. There's also increasing evidence that pharmacists, particularly in collaborative practice models, can improve outcomes from drug therapy.
Supporting collaborative inter-professional models of health care delivery is critical to system sustainability and this will increase the need for pharmacists with the specific skills and expertise for expanded practice. The development of these skills requires experiential inter-professional training and practice, and universities require additional funding to increase the number of such training opportunities.
Best practices in recruitment and retention must also consider the proportion of internationally trained pharmacists in the workforce. International recruiting, while a potential solution to workforce shortages, must be done in an ethical manner. In the longer term, Canada should work towards becoming more self-sufficient in meeting its health care workforce needs.
The Association of Faculties of Pharmacy of Canada reports a pharmacy school applicant acceptance rate of one in six, yet in Canada last year the national examining board for pharmacy registered more than 1,200 pharmacists who were eligible for licensure, and 40% of these pharmacists were trained outside the country. More than 50% of pharmacists licensed in Ontario last year were trained outside Canada.
Despite these numbers, pharmacist shortages in both community and hospital settings continue to be a challenge, although somewhat less so than in the past. This leads to significant dissatisfaction as pharmacists continue to report heavy or increased workloads as their biggest challenge, while owners and managers report finding and keeping qualified staff as their challenge. Overwork and burnout are common complaints, resulting in lack of time to meaningfully interact with patients.
Achieving optimal drug therapy outcomes needs an approach that requires time. To meet some of these challenges, we've seen employers introduce innovative HR practices, such as flexible work hours and compensation packages with incentives. such as signing bonuses and subsidizing continuing education.
On a more pragmatic side, pharmacists currently spend too much time on drug plan administration. Simpler drug plans would be a good first step to better manage the use of Canada's available pharmacy workforce.
We also need innovation in the use of trained pharmacy technicians to support the optimal use of Canada's pharmacy human resources. We now have accreditation standards for pharmacy technician education programs and approved entry-to-practice competencies, and many provinces have put in the legislative and practice requirements to allow for the registration and eventual regulation of pharmacy technicians.
In conclusion, to make better use of pharmacists in the health care system, we need innovation to develop expanded roles for pharmacists that will lead to increased satisfaction; we need investment in inter-professional education and training in practice settings; we need to develop the role of pharmacy technicians in relation to drug distribution; and last, we need new practice models with new methods of compensation.
With support from the federal government, and indeed many provinces, we are beginning to develop innovative practice models. At the national level, we're supporting a major “Blueprint for Pharmacy” initiative to lead and direct change in the profession.
Thank you very much.