Comparison of hospital pharmacy practice in France and Canada: can different practice perspectives complement each other?

OBJECTIVE: To compare hospital pharmacy practice in France and Canada by identifying similarities and differences in the two institution's pharmacy activities, resources, drug dispensing processes and responsibilities.
SETTING: Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine (SJ), Montréal, Québec, Canada and Hôpital Robert Debré (RD), Paris, France, are two maternal-child teaching hospitals. They share a similar mission focused on patient care, teaching and research.
METHOD: The data were gathered from annual reports, department strategic plans and by direct observation. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: The description and comparison of the legal environment, hospital demographics, pharmacy department data, drug dispensing processes and pharmacist activities in the two institutions.
RESULTS: The Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine and Hôpital Robert Debré are similar with respect to their mission and general demographics; number of beds, annual hospital expenditures, number of admissions, visits and childbirths. The respective pharmacy departments differ in allocated resources. The main operational differences concern compounding, quality control programs and clinical activities. The French department also manages medical devices, medical gases, blood derivatives and the sterilisation unit. These comparisons highlight the more patient-oriented Canadian hospital pharmacy practice against the more product-oriented French hospital practice Factors contributing to these differences include academic curriculum, the attention paid to the legal environment by professional bodies, staffing patterns and culture.
CONCLUSION: There are differences between the hospital pharmacy practice in the studied hospitals in Canada and France. Hospital pharmacy practice in France seems to be more product oriented, and the practice in Canada seems more patient oriented.