Issue link: http://clhia.uberflip.com/i/406567
31 d.3 Expanding Pharmacists' Scope of Practice Pharmacists can also play an important role in helping to better manage costs and improve patient outcomes. The industry supports the continued expansion of the scope of practice of pharmacists in Canada. Better leveraging pharmacists' capabilities will free up physician capacity, improve patient service and also reduce overall costs to the system. As well, pharmacists can play an important part in improving overall prescription drug adherence by leveraging their detailed knowledge of their patients and their drug refill history. Better adherence to drug therapies will not only improve health outcomes but also reduce waste in the system which ultimately drives up costs. Therapeutic substitution is important for both the public and private sectors. In this regard, a number of provinces now allow for therapeutic substitution by pharmacists. However, there remains work to be done on this front, as not all provinces in Canada have expanded pharmacists' scope of practice to allow for this. As well, in our industry's experience, there are relatively high administrative costs to pharmacists when doing a therapeutic substitution that act as a disincentive for doing higher volumes of therapeutic substitution. Governments need to address this through designing more streamlined processes if therapeutic substitution is going to meet its potential as a cost saving activity to the system. THEREFORE, THE CLHIA RECOMMENDS THAT: • THERE BE A CONTINUED, THOUGHTFUL, EXPANSION OF THE SCOPE OF PRACTICE FOR PHARMACISTS AND, IN PARTICULAR, THAT ALL PROVINCES ALLOW FOR THERAPEUTIC SUBSTITUTION BY PHARMACISTS WITH THE MINIMUM DEGREE OF ADMINISTRATIVE COMPLEXITY.