Pharmacy Corner
RESOURCES FOR PHARMACY

As part of our ongoing support of Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Partners of Canada Inc. is proud to bring you a special feature article on the annual BCHS Business Practices and Leadership Forum.

Like every area of health science, Pharmacy is an ever-changing profession, with new discoveries and trends constantly stimulating discussion and pushing boundaries. One of the best ways for busy professionals to stay abreast of developments in Pharmacy is to attend conferences where they can compare notes, network, and listen to current thinking from industry leaders. While every conference has its own formula for success, one such forum attracts an ever-growing audience by evolving to meet the needs of Pharmacy professionals.

The BCHS Business Practices and Leadership Forum is an annual Vancouver-based conference that keeps participants current with the economics, trends, and emerging issues within the Pharmacy industry, as well as business practices essential to their professional development. BCHS (British Columbia Health Services) hosts the conference in conjunction with the Business Practices Conference Planning Committee, which is comprised of provincial health care leaders. The committee identifies the topics that address current issues, while BCHS develops conference content under the guidance of the committee.

Why has the BCHS conference become one of Canada’s best attended and most influential pharmacy forums? Partly because organizers listen to their audience, and work hard to create a forum that pharmacists will be eager to attend.

Ingrid Kandal, owner of BC Health Services, and founder of the popular conference, says that the organizing committee is always looking to remove the roadblocks that often deter conference attendance.

“Even before this conference was conceived, we did a survey with Coopers & Lybrand to find out what sorts of things discouraged people from attending forums such as this. That research showed that expenses related to travel, meals and registration fees were the main impediments to hospital-based pharmacy staff registering for conferences.”

This finding came as no surprise. But what was surprising was that BCHS took immediate steps to eliminate these financial barriers.

“We have an outstanding list of sponsors who know they’re reaching the audience they want through our conference. PPC’s generous support in particular played an important role in establishing the conference as the founding member and as a perennial supporter. All of our sponsors’ generous support enables us to subsidize attendees’ travel, food and accommodation expenses”, says Ingrid. “so we’ve been able to make our conference financially accessible to a much wider audience. BC Directors of Pharmacy can now send their technicians and buyers here to network, rub shoulders with top industry players, and stay on top of the latest trends. We’re proud to be able to provide a learning experience that nearly anyone in Pharmacy can afford to take advantage of.”

The fact that the BCHS conference is so accessible has meant that all levels of Pharmacy – from Health Authority CEOs to pharmacy technicians – can interact, share experiences, and learn the challenges that face every aspect of the profession.

Continue to part two...