Pharmacists wanted for time and motion study

Calling all pharmacists in Ontario and Saskatchewan! Be part of a ground-breaking study that will serve to help community pharmacies optimize workflow, the workforce and the delivery of patient care.

Research teams at the University of Saskatchewan and University of Toronto, led by Jason Perepelkin, Associate Professor at the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, University of Saskatchewan, are conducting a time and motion study to document pharmacists’ daily activities. Funded by the Canadian Foundation for Pharmacy’s Innovation Fund, it will be the first publicly available, published study of its kind in Canada.

Historically, informal unpublished studies have indicated that the traditional pharmacy workflow, conceived before the era of expanded scopes of practice, significantly limits the time community pharmacists can spend on tasks that require their licence. This time and motion study will quantify the amount of time that pharmacists spend on activities, with the ultimate goal being to catalyze community pharmacy’s transition to workflows that will unlock millions of clinician hours across the sector.

Trained pharmacy student observers will shadow participating pharmacists for one shift to better understand how time is spent across clinical (licensed) and non-clinical activities. No identifying information on the pharmacist or pharmacy will be published. Participants will receive their pharmacy’s results and the average of results from other participating pharmacies in the province.

Pharmacists interested in participating in the study are asked to complete this form to receive more details.