The Report of the 2019-2020 Professional Affairs Standing Committee: Pharmacist Integration with Primary Care Practices

The 2019-2020 Professional Affairs Committee was charged to (1) Describe the leadership role of schools of pharmacy in advancing interprofessional practice, with an emphasis on physician-pharmacist collaborative relationships; (2) Establish an inventory of resources that can support school efforts to grow collaborative partnerships between pharmacists and physicians; (3) Determine gaps that exist in the resources required to support schools in efforts to facilitate expansion of interprofessional partnerships; and (4) Define strategies and draft an action plan for AACP's role in facilitating member school efforts to accelerate the development of interprofessional practices within their geography of influence. This report provides information on the committee's process to address the committee charges as well as background and resources pertaining to the charges, describes the rationale for and the results from the focus groups conducted at the 2020 AACP Interim Meeting, communicates the results of an initial inventory of models that integrate pharmacists with primary care practices, and provides an overview on issues to continue the work to integrate pharmacists with primary care practices. The committee offered several revisions to current association policy statements and provided a proposed policy statement and several recommendations to AACP pertaining to the committee charges.

Family physicians' perceptions of pharmacists prescribing in Alberta

Canadian pharmacists now have prescribing authority and little is documented about the physicians' perception, experience and relational dynamics evolving around the pharmacists' prescribing practice. The objective of this study was to explore Albertan family physicians' perceptions and experiences of pharmacists' prescribing practice. We used purposeful and maximum variation sampling method and semi-structured face to face or telephone interviews to collect data. From October 2014 to February 2016, we interviewed 12 family physicians in Alberta, having experience with pharmacist prescribing. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim for analysis using an interpretive description method, guided by "Relational Coordination" theory. NVivo software was used to manage the data. Three key beliefs (i.e., renewal versus initiate new prescription, community versus team pharmacists, and "I am responsible") about pharmacist prescribing were identified. Trust and communication were prominent themes which shaped participants' collaboration with pharmacist prescribers. Participants were classified as either "collaborative" or "consultative". Participants had greater collaboration with the team pharmacist prescribers compared to community pharmacists due to a higher level of trust and ease of communication. Renewal prescribing by any pharmacist was well accepted but participants showed hesitancy in accepting pharmacist-initiated prescriptions. Our findings provide insight into interprofessional collaboration and communication between physician and pharmacist prescribers.