Unifying a profession and a health care system: Building the case for a "one pharmacy" global community

Abstract

The rational use of medicines to achieve better patient outcomes is a global concern. This need has pressured the practice of pharmacy to move away from focusing only on dispensing of the drug product towards the patient's appropriate utilization of the medicine. PharmAlliance, a unique partnership among three leading schools of pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (United States), Monash University (Australia), and University College London (United Kingdom), convened a Global Summit of Pharmacy Practice Innovation in November 2017 to bring together the leaders of the professional associations of the three countries to dialogue about how to lead the identified changes. A framework of "One Pharmacy Community" resulted from the discussions and was conceptualized from the overarching theme of the Summit. Recognizing and articulating these similarities into a One Pharmacy Community framework enables the development of a consistent global nomenclature of pharmacy services. The four pillars that resulted from the conversation are education, research, practice, and collaboration. Each of these are essential and dependent on the other in order to enable pharmacy practice to meet the global requirements of patient-focused health care design and delivery. This article describes the framework and each of the pillars.