A Vision for Hospital Pharmacy in Canada

Abstract

Canadians through patientcentred care”.CSHP continues to work as an active partner with several other pharmacy organizations in implementing this vision for our profession. For example, this fall CSHP will be participating in the Pharmacy Practice Model Initiative of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, helping to cast a new vision specifically for hospital pharmacy practice. It is also worth noting that “vision” can also function as a verb. Some sources define the verb “vision” as “to dream.” This relationship between dreaming and visioning was captured by Dr Charles D Hepler in the 2010 H A K Whitney Award address (given during the ASHP Summer Meeting and Exhibition in June 2010; see Am J Health Syst Pharm 2010;67[16]: 1319–1325), in which he stated, “The dream of pharmacy as a clinical profession has been deferred too long” and “There will never be a better time for us to make our dream deferred into a vision achieved.” As a profession, we have made incredible progress over the past few decades, with the rise of clinical pharmacy and pharmaceutical care. Still, admittedly, there is much work to be done. Pharmacists are not providing pharmaceutical care to every patient in our nation’s hospitals, and there are patients for whom the medication-use system is neither safe nor effective. My personal challenge to you is to consider “vision” as both a noun and a verb in your own practice area as you dream about new services and strive toward the targets in CSHP 2015.