Canadian Pharmacists Journal / Revue des Pharmaciens du Canada

To share the experiences of graduating students as they learn to deliver a new medication review service in community pharmacies in Ontario, Canada.

Four graduating pharmacy students volunteered in different community pharmacies to learn how to navigate a new provincial program called MedsCheck, which pays pharmacists to do medication reviews. Each student selected his or her own practice site, including 2 independent community pharmacies, a grocery store chain pharmacy and a hospital outpatient pharmacy.

To help the students learn to deliver the new MedsCheck services, a faculty mentor met with them on a weekly basis. To reflect on doing MedsChecks in the “real world” and to elicit feedback from the online community, each student blogged about his or her experiences.

All 4 students felt that peer mentoring improved their ability to deliver MedsCheck services. They also identified a number of barriers to delivering the MedsChecks and helped each other try to overcome the barriers.

MedsCheck is a new service in Ontario and is not easily implemented in the current pharmacy model of practice. Peer mentoring is a helpful way to share successes and overcome barriers to delivery. Can Pharm J 2013;146:33-38.

Geographic proximity is an important component of access to primary care and the pharmaceutical services of community pharmacies. Variations in access to primary care have been found between rural and urban areas in Canadian and international jurisdictions. We studied access to community pharmacies in the province of Nova Scotia.

We used information on the locations of 297 community pharmacies operating in Nova Scotia in June 2011. Population estimates at the census block level and network analysis were used to study the number of Nova Scotia residents living within 800 m (walking) and 2 km and 5 km (driving) distances of a pharmacy. We then simulated the impact of pharmacy closures on geographic access in urban and rural areas.

We found that 40.3% of Nova Scotia residents lived within walking distance of a pharmacy; 62.6% and 78.8% lived within 2 km and 5 km, respectively. Differences between urban and rural areas were pronounced: 99.2% of urban residents lived within 5 km of a pharmacy compared with 53.3% of rural residents. Simulated pharmacy closures had a greater impact on geographic access to community pharmacies in rural areas than urban areas.

The majority of Nova Scotia residents lived within walking or short driving distance of at least 1 community pharmacy. While overall geographic access appears to be lower than in the province of Ontario, the difference appears to be largely driven by the higher proportion of rural dwellers in Nova Scotia. Further studies should examine how geographic proximity to pharmacies influences patients’ access to traditional and specialized pharmacy services, as well as health outcomes and adherence to therapy. Can Pharm J 2013;146:39-46.

Practice-based research networks (PBRNs) are groups of practitioners and researchers with an interest in designing, evaluating and disseminating solutions to the real-world problems of clinical practices.

To evaluate the level of interest of community pharmacists in participating in a PBRN and to document the services such a network should offer.

In a survey of community pharmacists in Montreal, Quebec, and surrounding areas, a questionnaire was mailed to a random sample of 1250 pharmacists. Two of the 28 questions were related to PBRNs: one assessed the pharmacists’ interest in participating in a PBRN; the other sought their views on which services and activities this network should offer.

In total, 571 (45.7%) pharmacists completed the questionnaire, but 6 did not answer the questions about the PBRN. Of the respondents, 58.9% indicated they were “very interested” or “interested” in joining a PBRN, while 41.1% reported little or no interest. The most popular potential services identified were access to clinical tools developed in research projects (77.0%), access to continuing education training programs developed in research projects (75.9%), information about conferences on pharmacy practice research (64.1%) and participation in the development of new pharmaceutical practices (56.1%).

This study suggests that the level of interest that community pharmacists have in PBRNs is sufficient to further evaluate how such networks may optimize and facilitate pharmacy practice research. Can Pharm J 2013;146:47-54.