News

  • All
  • News
  • Other Resources

[caption id="attachment_4495" align="alignnone" width="250"] Marc Kealey[/caption] From the Desk of the Executive Director. As we enter the fall of 2020, normally it would be a time to celebrate the end of summer and the beginning of the fall season with all of the busy activity re the start of school and the various issues associated with this. Fall is also the season when we prepare for the Annual General Meeting and conference for ACPC. Strangely enough the seemingly never- ending pandemic has challenged the operations of our association and made what normally would be an ease from one season to the next, a very awkward and difficult time. Despite the challenges facing our society and by extension our association, ACPC over the past 18 months has established itself, and by extension our profession, as a partner and an effective advocate for issues facing our profession and the patients we serve. I reference our effective outreach with Health Canada on commercial compounding, our role in the multi stakeholder task force on shortages and other pharmacy issues as well as NIHB and reimbursement. Similarly, we have had effective outreach with colleges and associations across Canada to create better awareness and effectiveness about the role of compounding pharmacy. We continue to be hopeful that our outreach with NAPRA and by extension provincial colleges, can and will create a better understanding from regulators about the fundamental shifts in patient needs and wants for pharmacy - which includes compounding. The NAPRA guidelines are in no small measure onerous on the industry and have the unintended consequence of testing the ability for our insurers to adequately asses what they believe is undue commercial and professional risk associated with underwriting our facilities. In the past several weeks we have been engaged in active outreach to provincial associations (in particular in Ontario)...

[caption id="attachment_4505" align="alignnone" width="250"] Jarron Yee[/caption] [logo_carousel_pro id="4684"]As I write this, I note that as the President of your professional association we enter the AGM season with a stable membership base but the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged ACPC and its ability to operate and communicate effectively thereby compromising the kind of grass-roots organization you, as members, need and want. To that end, as a Board and members of the Association, we strive to find ways to innovate and grow our membership. Last year, many members identified the AGM as a highlight of and for their year. We had a rich agenda with a faculty that was both informative and learning centred. We were also just at the end of a federal election in 2019 and had the opportunity to understand what path the legislative and regulatory would go in the months ahead. But all that was before the pandemic hit! The new year culminated with high level meetings between our Association and the Deputy Minister of Health – it was a good way to kick off the year and we were encouraged that Health Canada wanted compounding pharmacy to participate in formulating national policy for pharmacy. Further, we are now part of the multi-stakeholder working group on issues related to the profession – including shortages. Then the pandemic hit! The pandemic itself has transformed much of the way people manage their lives and businesses operate. The isolation, the shift in priorities and the loss of jobs, social activities and other day to day things that we might have taken for granted have been transformed – likely for years to come. The COVID 19 infection is not to be taken lightly and our patients have come to expect more from us as compounding pharmacy. More to the point, the pandemic has exposed weaknesses in our...

Loading new posts...
No more posts