Board Highlights - February 17, 2017

Highlights from this meeting include approval of the College's new Strategic Plan and budget; Governance Committee updates; proposed changes to NAPRA governance; Excellence Canada's EIW Standard; the amended pharmacy security bylaws; and an overview of the Policy and Legislation Department's projects and key processes. 

Strategic Plan 

The Board approved the 2017/18 – 2019/20 Strategic Plan. 

This comes after the Board approved a draft of the Strategic Plan at the November  2016 Board meeting with one change – to remove plans to extend the Practice Review Program into practice settings beyond Community and Hospital practice. 

Staff were directed to update the draft Strategic Plan, developing detailed timelines and a multi-year budget, while ensuring there will be flexibility to adjust to any new priorities that may emerge over the next three years.  

The College will now direct its efforts toward achieving the following four goals outlined in the new strategic plan: 

Goal 1: Legislative Standards and Modernization  The College will work to modernize the legislative requirements under the Pharmacy Operations and Drug Scheduling Act (PODSA) and the Health Professions Act (HPA), to ensure they are clear, consistent and enforceable.	Goal 2: Professional Excellence  The College will ensure that the practice of pharmacy meets or exceeds the standards set out to protect the public and maintain their trust.
Goal 3: Drug Therapy Access and Monitoring  The College will explore avenues that enhance the ability of pharmacy professionals to maximize the public’s access to safe, high quality drug therapy.	Goal 4: Organizational Excellence  The College will ensure the efficacy and efficiency of its foundational business processes, technological supports, and organization of its governance and staffing to meet the ongoing needs of registrants, pharmacy owners, directors, staff, the public and other stakeholders.

Budget 

The Board approved the proposed 2017/18 budget. 

In light of the loss of revenue from the Ministry of Health’s decision to transfer the College’s two PharmaNet contracts back to the Ministry of Health, the College has developed a multi-year plan that draws on reserves to help manage the immediate impact, followed by replenishment of those reserves through fee increases. 

The College worked with the Audit and Finance Committee that allows the College to maintain momentum in implementing the 2017/18 – 2019/20 Strategic Plan, improving legislation, improving IT infrastructure, and planning for and implementing business process improvements. 

Governance Committee Update 

Board Member and Chair of the Governance Committee, Norm Embree provided an update on the Governance Committee’s activities since the last Board Meeting. 

The second phase of the organizational review being conducted by Ernst & Young is now underway after being approved by the Board at the November 18, 2016 meeting. This phase will focus on the Board and external stakeholders. 

Committee Appointments/Re-appointments

Led by the Governance Committee, the College is beginning the annual process of appointing and re-appointing members to the College’s various committees. 

College Committees play an important role in allowing the College to meet its legislative requirements, and draw on additional expertise as part of decision making. Some committees, such as Registration, Inquiry, and Discipline are required by legislation, while other committees, such as Community, Hospital and Residential Care provide valuable stakeholder feedback and help with bylaw and policy development. Opportunities for the public to participate on committees also exist – public members play an important role in providing a public and patient perspective committees.

A call for volunteers to fill vacancies will be issued shortly – stay tuned!

To learn what’s required to apply to become a committee member, see the volunteer forms for pharmacy professionals and the public. 

Pharmacy Professionals - Committee Member Volunteer Application Form
Public - Committee Member Volunteer Application Form

The Governance Committee will review applications and provide recommendations for committee appointments to the College Board for approval at the April 2017 Board meeting.  

NAPRA Governance 

Blake Reynolds, the BC Director on the National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities (NAPRA) Board representing the College, presented on the proposed changes to NAPRA governance. 

In April 2016, NAPRA’s Board of Directors created an Ad-hoc Committee on Governance to address concerns with its current governance approach, to explore options for improvement, and to make recommendations to the Board regarding governance changes. 

After reviewing the pros and cons of a range of Board Composition options, the Ad-hoc committee decided to focus on two composition options for NAPRA: 

1. The current composition model with Member organization representatives as the voting directors 
2. The registrars as the voting members of the board 

Excellence Canada 

Catherine Neville of Excellence Canada presented to the Board a brief overview of their new Excellence, Innovation and Wellness (EIW) Standard, how it aligns with Goal Four of the College’s existing Strategic Plan: Organization Excellence, and how the Board can help facilitate the College’s Journey to Excellence.

The Excellence, Innovation and Wellness Standard works as a framework to integrate the College’s current strategic initiatives with an assessment tool to ensure organizational needs are being addressed. The assessment tool will provide a baseline for performance across the organization, and allow progress to be measured over time in areas such as corporate culture and employee engagement. 

Pharmacy Security Bylaws – Filing 

The Board approved amendments to the Pharmacy Operations and Drug Scheduling Act (PODSA) Bylaws to create minimum security measures for community pharmacies for filing with the Ministry of Health, as well as revisions to Professional Practice Policy #74: Community Pharmacy Security and a repeal of the Community Pharmacy Security Resource Guide. 

The amendments presented by the Legislation Review Committee are the result of a multi-year effort to address serious concerns regarding pharmacy security in BC. 

In 2013, the Vancouver Police Department presented concerns about an increase in community pharmacy robberies, to the College’s Board. Afterwards, a Robbery Prevention Working Group was struck. And, minimum security measures were introduced in February 2015, in a professional practice policy (PPP-74 Community Pharmacy Security). In 2015, staff began working to transition the policy to bylaws, as per Board direction. 

In 2016, the proposed pharmacy security bylaws were posted for two separate 90-day public posting periods. Following the initial 90-day public posting period, many significant changes were made in response to the feedback obtained. These changes included:

• Limiting the notification to the Registrar of any loss of drugs and personal information to loss of narcotic and controlled drugs only; 
• Removal of Schedule III drugs from the physical barrier requirement; and
• The addition of a three year transition period to allow time for existing pharmacies to become compliant with the physical barriers requirement.

During the second public posting period, three letters of feedback were received. One of the common concerns raised was regarding the physical barriers requirement in the draft bylaws. The draft bylaws require that Schedule I and II drugs, controlled drug substances and personal health information be secured by physical barriers, when there is no pharmacist present and the pharmacy premise is accessible by non-registrants. Existing community pharmacies will have a three-year transition period to comply with this physical barrier requirement. 

Physical barriers along with the other security measures in the draft bylaws are part of a continuum of security measures which are supported through the principles of crime prevention through environmental design and situation crime prevention. Rather than require a “one size fits all” approach to the physical barrier requirement, the draft bylaws allow for physical barriers to be tailored to the needs and structure of the particular community pharmacy.  Examples of physical barriers include: locked gates, grillwork, locked cabinets, locked doors, and locked shelving units. 

While DrugSafeBC has been a remarkable success – the numbers of pharmacy robberies have reduced substantially over 2015-2016 - we have also seen an increase in pharmacy break and enters over that same period. The pharmacy security measures, including the physical barrier requirements, aims to help address these types of serious security concerns in our community pharmacies.  

Following a fulsome review of the feedback received during the second public posting period, no further changes were made. The Board approved the draft bylaws for filing with the Minister of Health, as per section 21(4) of PODSA. The College expects these bylaws to be in force 60 days after being filed with the Minister.

Legislation and Policy Overview

Jeremy Walden,  Chair of the LRC presented information to the Board about the Policy and Legislation Department’s projects and key processes. 

The College’s Policy and Legislation Department was created about a year ago. Over the course of the year, the team has collected outstanding projects previously identified by various College staff and external stakeholders. Internal and external consultations identified potential projects not yet captured within the department’s operational plan. 

In November 2016, the College’s Legislation Review Committee (LRC) requested that staff provide a Policy and Legislation List identifying the department’s projects for review and feedback. 

Overview of the Policy and Legislation List: