Conflict or co-operation? Ontarian pharmacists battle for an increased scope of practice

Pharmacists across Ontario have recently had their scope of practice expanded. Among the new responsibilities are Medscheck programs, vaccine administering, ordering lab tests, and the renewal of prescriptions before authorization from physicians. Further expansions such as prescribing for minor ailments are currently being explored. Both scope of practice changes (those implemented and those being discussed) re-structure healthcare divisions of labour. In doing so, they lead to a situation where pharmacists’ scope of practice increasingly overlaps with part of medical doctors’ and nurses’ jurisdictions. Historically, there has been considerable interprofessional conflict between medicine and pharmacy that has limited pharmacists’ scope of practice. Do these recent changes mean that interprofessional conflict is less relevant within the system of professions? Do they suggest a new era of healthcare professional collaboration and co-operation? Or do they suggest the system of professions is changing in fundamental ways? This research will seek answers to these questions through a content analysis of documents such as the Health Professions Regulatory Advisory Council (HPRAC) 2008 Interim Report to identify the contexts and rationales shaping these scope of practice changes. Findings reveal that other professions are supportive but hesitant to expand the scope of practice of pharmacists.To conclude, current research is missing the investigation of the impact of an increased scope of practice of pharmacists on the profession itself. This research will be of interest both to sociologists and to pharmacists. It will help us begin to understand both the benefits and consequences of an increased scope of practice in the profession

Process studies of odour emissions from effluent ponds using machine-based odour measurement

Replicable experimental studies using a novel experimental facility and a machine-based odour quantification technique were conducted to demonstrate the relationship between odour emission rates and pond loading rates. The odour quantification technique consisted of an electronic nose, AromaScan A32S, and an artificial neural network. Odour concentrations determined by olfactometry were used along with the AromaScan responses to train the artificial neural network. The trained network was able to predict the odour emission rates for the test data with a correlation coefficient of 0.98. Time averaged odour emission rates predicted by the machine-based odour quantification technique, were strongly correlated with volatile solids loading rate, demonstrating the increased magnitude of emissions from a heavily loaded effluent pond. However, it was not possible to obtain the same relationship between volatile solids loading rates and odour emission rates from the individual data. It is concluded that taking a limited number of odour samples over a short period is unlikely to provide a representative rate of odour emissions from an effluent pond. A continuous odour monitoring instrument will be required for that more demanding task