From the Desk of Executive Director Marc Kealey Sept 2020
[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)...