Highlights

The College launched its new Practice Review Program (PRP) in January 2015.

The PRP is a new assessment model, where College staff will review every pharmacist, pharmacy technician and pharmacy in-person at least once every six years.

The PRP is a new and progressive method to ensure that pharmacists and pharmacy technicians comply with College standards, guidelines, and provincial legislation in order to provide quality care. The program also establishes a consistent, equitable and fair process of assessing pharmacy operations across the province. It is comprehensive in scope, and launched first in community pharmacies, which is known as Phase I of the program. Phase II is the implementation across hospital pharmacies, and Phase III will include other practice settings, such as academia.

A practice review consists of two parts: the Pharmacy Review and the Pharmacy Professionals Review. These reviews are designed to be reasonably non-disruptive to daily operations, as newly hired College staff – known as Compliance Officers – mainly observe and assess the practice setting and individual registrants.

The Pharmacy Review is based on the previously used inspections process and takes approximately half a day. Pharmacy Professionals Reviews also take approximately half a day. Compliance Officers spend this time observing regulated pharmacy professionals as they perform their work and assess them on the four Board-approved focus areas:

• Patient Identification (ensuring the right patient gets the right medication)
• PharmaNet Profile Check (ensuring medications are appropriate and work safely together)
• Counselling (ensuring patients understand why and how to take the medication safely)
• Documentation (ensuring accurate records are kept for each prescription)

The College developed a new web-based computer application to record and deliver review results in real time. Compliance Officers share the results of the Pharmacy Professionals Review with the registered pharmacy professional as soon it is complete. Each pharmacy professional then acknowledges their results. If action items are assigned, they have 30 days to make corrective changes and submit any supporting documentation to the Compliance Officer.

The Compliance Officer then shares the results of the Pharmacy Review with the pharmacy manager, who acknowledges the results. If action items are assigned, the pharmacy manager has 30 days to make corrective changes and submit any supporting documentation to the Compliance Officer.

The Practice Review Program is a major College initiative and we look forward to furthering our partnership with pharmacy professionals to improve patient care in British Columbia.