Pharmacy Human Resource Challenges
Is there a Pharmacist Shortage?
Bonnie Salsman and Steve Long

Canada has 24,500 licensed pharmacists; 80% work in retail pharmacies, 15% in hospitals, and 5% in other fields. Faculties of Pharmacy graduate 800 students per year. The survey results from the 1999/2000 Hospital Pharmacy in Canada Annual Report were presented including data from the special interest section on Human Resources. The survey results indicated a 10% vacancy rate for pharmacists but no significant vacancies in support positions such as pharmacy technicians and clerical staff. Pharmacist vacancies took an average of 4 months to fill. Some respondents experienced an impact on service due to staff shortages. A further consideration is that many pharmacists are eligible to retire in the next five years.

Despite pharmacist shortages, very few departments have retention and recruitment strategies. These strategies could include staff satisfaction surveys, education and training opportunities, career ladders, top of scale bonuses, flexible work hours, signing bonuses, and recruitment fees. With the July 1, 2001 enactment of the Mutual Recognition clause, licensees from nine provinces will be able to practice pharmacy in other provinces. This will provide additional recruitment opportunities for hospitals.

In general, there was a trend towards an increase in pharmacist positions, but the proportion of time spent in distribution, direct patient care, and teaching/research remained unchanged. In addition, the ratio of pharmacists to technicians remained at approximately 1:1. There is an opportunity to improve on the use of technicians both to ensure that they consistently perform their traditional roles in all practice settings and to move forward with other responsibilities such as technician checking of technician work. This delegation of work needs to be accompanied with appropriate technician training and certification programs to ensure quality and manage risk.

Pharmacists and technicians perform the majority of order entry and there has been no significant progress to clinician order entry in Canada or the USA (less than 10% of sites). Strong physician involvement in the process is required for success as well as large numbers of input devices in patient care areas.

Finally, there needs to be an increase in the number of automated dispensing systems. Only a third of hospitals had automation support and the majority of these were centralized systems.