Assistant Professor and Clinician Scientist Lisa McCarthy and Ontario College of Pharmacists Professor in Pharmacy Practice Lisa Dolovich from the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto, and Ontario College of Pharmacists Professor in Pharmacy Innovation Nancy Waite from the University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy are recipients of a Canadian Institutes of Health Research grant.

“Incorporating Quality Improvement into Community Pharmacy to Improve Drug Prescribing, Use and Health Outcomes for Older Adults” will see OPEN bring together researchers, stakeholders including patients, and knowledge users for a one-day meeting to discuss implementing and embedding quality improvement practices in community pharmacy settings.

Through this funding, Drs. McCarthy, Dolovich, and Waite aim to embed quality improvement thinking into Canadian pharmacy culture to improve medication use, management, and outcomes for older patients in their communities.

Most older Canadians use five or more medications daily, which may increase the likelihood of adverse events including death. Community pharmacists are an important and potentially underutilized resource for patients, especially older adults. Recent changes to pharmacists’ scope of practice and existing gaps in the quality of services they provide mean that it is time to reimagine pharmacists’, and pharmacies’, workflow, operations, and patient care processes.

Through this meeting and related exploratory activities, the team will build an agenda for future research exploring the feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of proposed interventions seeking to integrate quality improvement approaches into community pharmacy culture.

For more information, please direct your inquiry to Elizabeth Bojarski, OPEN research program coordinator, at (416) 946-7599.