collaborative practice collaborative practice - Ontario College of ...

7 steps to more
effective partnerships
with other health care
professionals
By Stuart Foxman
How do you get from co-operation to
collaboration? That question preoccupies
Kelly Haggerty, RPh. She runs an anticoagulation
clinic at her Bright’s Grove
Family Pharmacy in Sarnia, working with 40
doctors. As she notes, pharmacists regularly
exchange information with various health
care professionals. Yet those are mainly
routine interactions. True collaboration is
different.
“Collaboration means respecting each
other’s contribution, knowledge and ability
to solve a problem,” says Haggerty. The
ultimate outcome – “Patients can be
managed more effectively.”
Four pharmacists who’ve had success
collaborating with other professionals share
their thoughts on how to do it effectively.
1. Get your credentials ready
When Haggerty opened her independent
pharmacy in 2009, she wanted to broaden
her scope of practice and introduce new
clinical programs. One of her ideas was to
perform blood tests with a point-of-care
machine, and manage dosages for patients
on warfarin.
“I needed to collaborate with physicians to
work under their medical directive,” she says.
“If you’re going to ask a doctor for that, they
have to see that your expertise is valid.”
LEFT: Pharmacist Sean Simpson with
pharmacy assistant Sydney Brown.
She enrolled in a University of Waterloo
program in anti-coagulation management.
“I spent a lot of time preparing, enhancing
my knowledge to the point where I could
show I was academically prepared. I needed
to prove that my skills were strong enough.”
PHARMACY CONNECTION ~ SPRING 2013 ~ PAGE 13