Pharmacy Appreciation Month
March is Pharmacy Appreciation Month (formerly Pharmacy Awareness Month), bringing awareness to the important role that the profession of pharmacy plays in our healthcare system and in supporting the health and well-being of the public it serves.
NLPB would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the pharmacy professionals of our province for your dedication and commitment to providing equitable and quality care in the best interest of the public you serve.
We’re Hiring!
Practice Consultant (Hospital Pharmacy)
NLPB is now hiring for the part-time, contractual position of Practice Consultant (Hospital Pharmacy). For full details please visit the NLPB website: https://staging.nlpb.ca/now-hiring-practice-consultant-hospital-pharmacy
Qualified applicants are invited to submit a letter of application and resume to careers@nlpb.ca.
While NLPB appreciates all applicants, only those short-listed for an interview will be contacted.
Is Proof of your Professional Liability Insurance Coverage Up to Date?
NLPB would like to thank all pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, pharmacy interns, and pharmacy students who have updated their professional liability insurance (PLI) information and uploaded their PLI certificates in the Registrant Portal.
As a reminder to those who may not have had a chance to do so, NLPB is asking that all registered pharmacy professionals log into the Registrant Portal and ensure your PLI policy information and documentation is accurate and up to date by no later than Friday, March 3, 2023. The annual audit will resume after this date.
For instructions on updating your PLI information, please refer to the NLPB Registrant Portal User Guide – Adding/Updating Professional Liability Insurance.
Please note, registered pharmacy professionals are required to confirm that their PLI policy meets NLPB requirements and to upload a copy of their annual certificate of coverage to their profile on the NLPB Registrant Portal within 30 days of the policy start or renewal date. For a full list of these requirements, please refer to the NLPB Professional Liability Insurance Requirements for Registration Interpretation Guide.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact QA@nlpb.ca for assistance.
Call for Interest – Disciplinary Panel
NLPB is currently seeking registered pharmacists to serve as members of NLPB’s Disciplinary Panel. For full details, please visit: https://www.nlpb.ca/call-for-expression-of-interest-disciplinary-panel
Members of the Disciplinary Panel are called on occasionally to sit on three-person adjudication tribunals to hear complaints regarding registrants who are referred by the Complaints Authorization Committee.
If you are interested, please submit your name, contact information, a brief bio (including any relevant experience), and a few lines about why you are interested in being part of the Disciplinary Panel to complaints@nlpb.ca.
Post-Consumer Medication Returns
Recently, NLPB has received an increasing number of questions from the public regarding the safe disposal of medications, citing an inability to find a pharmacy in their area accepting patient returns or offering directions to an alternative method of safe disposal. As a reminder, community pharmacies may accept post-consumer returns provided they follow Health Canada’s Guidance Document: Handling and destruction of post-consumer returns containing controlled substances and use one of the following methods of disposal:
- destroy the returns locally;
- use a post-consumer returns container with an integrated system to destroy products that are placed within it; or
- sell or provide post-consumer returns to a licensed dealer.
NLPB encourages pharmacy professionals to assist their patients with proper waste disposal to the extent possible.
By accepting post-consumer returns or connecting people with proper waste disposal services, pharmacy professionals demonstrate their ethical responsibility to “support environmental stewardship by promoting safe disposal of drugs and other health products” as outlined in the NLPB Code of Ethics (Guideline 9.10).
Health Canada – Special Access Program for Drugs
Health Canada’s Special Access Program for drugs (SAP) enables drugs that are not marketed in Canada to be requested by practitioners for the treatment, diagnosis, or prevention of serious or life-threatening conditions when conventional therapies have failed, are unsuitable, or unavailable.
Practitioners are not required to have a Drug Establishment License (DEL) to request a drug for a medical emergency. To request a drug through SAP, practitioners must submit a Special Access Request (SAR) form with all required information to support the request.
SAP and Pharmacy
Practitioners requesting a drug must specify where the drug is to be shipped, which can include hospital or community pharmacies. The person who receives the drug for distribution or administration to a patient must be a practitioner or a pharmacist (subsection C.08.010(1)(c)). Please note, for drugs shipped to a community pharmacy, or a location other than the practitioner’s office, the requesting practitioner remains responsible to account for the quantity received.
For more information on the program, please refer to the Special Access Program for Drugs: Guidance document for Industry and Practitioners.
Scanning Requirements for Document Submission
NLPB recently developed a Scanning Guidelines and Checklist for Document Submissions Policy in order to prevent delays in processing and approving applications due to receiving illegible supporting documentation. Digital copies of original paper documents must meet the highest standard for quality and accuracy to support their authenticity, as such the policy outlines the steps for scanning, saving, and submitting documentation to ensure those standards are met.
Some small steps you can take to ensure your documentation is acceptable include:
- Scan documents using an acceptable scanning application; submitting a picture taken by a camera is NOT acceptable. Approved apps for scanning with your mobile device include:
- Scan original documents at high resolution and 100% image size. Do not reduce or expand the scanning settings.
- Save each required document as an individual file. For example, proof of insurance and photo identification would be scanned and saved as two separate files, not as one file.
- Save documents as PDF (.pdf) or JPG (.jpg). TIFF (.tiff) file formats are not accepted.
- Do not compress or zip files.
- Send documents as email attachments; do NOT insert documents as images in the body of emails and do NOT send files as links to cloud storage such as Google Docs or iCloud.
For a full list of requirements, refer to NLPB’s Scanning Guidelines and Checklist for Document Submissions Policy.
If you have any questions, please contact registration@nlpb.ca.
Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Misuse (CRISM) Webinar
Making the Case for Shared Decision Making in OUD Care:
A national case-based discussion with Community & Clinical experts
Join CRISM on March 9, 2023, from 2:30 pm-4:00 pm NST (1:00 pm-2:30 pm EST) as they bring together an interdisciplinary group of substance use experts to work through a clinical case for Opioid Use Disorder care.
In this hour-and-a-half webinar, clinicians and community experts will explore, debate, and collaborate on ways to meet both the patient’s and provider’s concerns for shared decision-making in OUD care and treatment. Led by two accomplished moderators, Natasha Tousenard and Emma Garrod, the group of community subject experts Matthew Bonn, Iye Sanneh, and Frank Crichlow, and clinicians Jac Atkinson and Dr. Alana Hirsh, will discuss how to best approach and enhance a patient’s treatment and overall management of opioid use disorder by highlighting flexibility and person-centered approaches to care.
Certificates of attendance can be provided after the session upon request.
Register at: https://echo.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZElc-6srDopHNV7kX87VCmkvLB6QOQG7uC7
Revised Standards of Pharmacy Operation for Community Pharmacy
As announced in the fall of 2022, NLPB has approved the revised Standards of Pharmacy Operation for Community Pharmacy.
The expectation is that the requirements of the Standards should be met at the earliest possible date but no later than September 1, 2023. All new pharmacy openings will be expected to meet the Standards at the time of opening.
Pharmacy professionals, including pharmacists-in-charge, pharmacists, and pharmacy technicians, should review the recent article in the Fall 2022 issue of The Apothecary for a summary of key changes and also review the Standards in their entirety at their earliest convenience.
Additional resources, such as a webinar series focusing on key changes, are being planned for the spring. Pharmacy professionals are encouraged to share their topic suggestions by contacting practicequestions@nlpb.ca.
Regular reminders
- Registrant Contact Information – Registrants are responsible for ensuring that the contact information on their registrant profile, including email address and practice site, is accurate at all times. The NLPB primarily uses email communication to send newsletters, renewal reminders, practice site assessment information, professional development audit information, calls for interest for committees, and other alerts. If the email address on file is incorrect, important information may be missed and/or disclosed to the wrong person. If your contact information changes, please update your information on file by logging into the NLPB Registrant Portal.
- Application Submission – NLPB receives many applications for processing. Unfortunately, some of the applications submitted are illegible, incomplete, or missing supporting documentation or payment, leading to delays in processing and approving the application. In order to ensure that your application is processed in a timely manner, please take a moment before submission to ensure that all fields are completed and legible and that all supporting documentation is included. All supporting documentation should adhere to NLPB’s Scanning Guidelines and Checklist for Document Submissions Policy. These small steps will help improve the process for both the applicant and NLPB.
This e-newsletter contains information on a wide variety of topics intended to enhance the practice of pharmacy in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. As it is published and circulated to all registrants on a monthly basis, it is the expectation of NLPB that all registrants are aware of the matters contained therein.