On September 30, pharmacy researchers, practitioners, educators and leaders from across Canada gathered at the Chelsea Hotel in Toronto for the 2026 SHARP Symposium. The event, presented in partnership with the Canadian Foundation for Pharmacy, showcased emerging Canadian pharmacy research and explored how that research can translate into better policy, practice and patient care.
This year’s Symposium centred on two interconnected themes: integrated care (i.e., how we can break down silos to build more collaborative care) and health equity, with a focus on ensuring that every patient is seen and heard as healthcare systems continue to evolve.
Those themes were woven throughout a full day of research presentations, discussion and collaboration, highlighting the breadth of work underway across Canadian pharmacy. A wide variety of presentations explored topics including the impact of pharmacy technicians on vaccination workflow, workplace stress and duress among pharmacists, improving primary care attachment through community pharmacy, virtual pharmacy-based healthcare navigation for newcomer international students, and pharmacy-based sexual health services. The Symposium also featured a session from Jaris Swirdovich about the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, the impacts of residential schools, and the importance of reconciliation.
Across the many research questions presented throughout the day, one overarching question continued to emerge: How do we turn what we know into meaningful change for patients and the healthcare system?
Seeing the Health System Through the Eyes of the Patient
The Symposium opened with a keynote from Michelle Nelson, Professor at the University of Ottawa’s School of Epidemiology and Public Health, who explored the role of community pharmacy in integrated care and its unique position within local communities.
Drawing on her work in implementation science and her experience leading a living lab that brings together researchers, policymakers, practitioners, industry partners, and people with lived experience, Nelson challenged attendees to think beyond the boundaries of individual healthcare organizations.
She described an “expectation-experience gap:” Canadians expect healthcare to be connected, continuous and person-centred, but often encounter a fragmented system in which patients and families are left to navigate disconnected services on their own.
Nelson argued that community pharmacy is uniquely positioned to help bridge some of those gaps. Pharmacists often have repeated, high-trust interactions with patients and can develop knowledge about a person that extends beyond what appears in a clinical record, including their goals, concerns, circumstances and the realities of their day-to-day lives.
That relationship, she suggested, is itself a form of social capital: a resource that can help connect people not only to care, but to their communities and to other parts of the healthcare system.
One of the keynote’s central messages was that pharmacy should not think of itself as an isolated “lily pad” within the healthcare system. Instead, its strength lies partly in its ability to connect people, places and systems.
“It doesn’t matter how strong your lily pad is, if people can’t find it, if frogs can’t get to you, then we’ve got a system issue,” she said.
For Nelson, the opportunity is to build on what is already working. It’s not enough to simply identify problems and design new solutions around them; we must also recognize existing strengths and find ways to connect and extend them.
From Evidence to Execution
That idea of connecting systems and translating knowledge into action carried directly into the day’s panel discussion, “From Evidence to Execution: Leveraging Research to Advance Scope of Practice.” Moderated by Angeline Ng, OPA’s Vice-President, Advocacy, the panel brought together Kristen Watt (Pharmacist, Owner, and OPA Board Chair), Nardine Nakhla (Associate Professor, University of Waterloo and Co-Founder and CEO, MAPflow), and Emily Black (Associate Professor, Dalhousie University), to examine how research has helped shape expanded pharmacy scope, and what evidence is needed to determine where the profession goes next.
The panelists emphasized that effective research needs to answer more than whether a new service works in theory. It needs to demonstrate the impact on patients, the healthcare system and the pharmacy teams responsible for delivering the care.
As Nakhla summarized, useful evidence needs to answer three questions: How did the patient do? What was the impact on the healthcare system? And was the service feasible for pharmacy?
The importance of locally relevant evidence was another recurring theme. While research from other provinces and jurisdictions can demonstrate what is possible, panelists noted that policymakers need evidence showing how interventions work in the Ontario context.
For frontline pharmacy, meanwhile, research also needs to translate from the “30,000-foot level” into the realities of daily practice, including staffing shortages, interruptions, changing demands and the practical question of how a new service will actually be delivered.
The panel also highlighted an important connection between expanded scope and the wellbeing of the pharmacy workforce. As pharmacists take on more clinical responsibilities, supporting the broader pharmacy team becomes increasingly important.
Examples from Nova Scotia demonstrated how appropriate infrastructure and dedicated space can allow pharmacists to focus on clinical services while reducing interruptions and burnout. The discussion reinforced that expanding scope cannot simply mean adding responsibilities; it also requires the systems, people and resources necessary to make those responsibilities sustainable.
Keeping the Patient at the Centre
The panel closed with a challenge that brought together many of the Symposium’s themes: scope expansion should ultimately be evaluated not as a professional achievement, but according to what it means for patients.
Panelists called for continued evaluation of expanded services, greater attention to the patient journey, stronger interdisciplinary collaboration and more meaningful involvement of patients and the public in research.
Rather than simply measuring whether a service was used, they encouraged researchers to ask what happens to patients before, during and after that interaction: Are they able to access the care they need? What happens when they are referred elsewhere? Does their experience change how they navigate the healthcare system in the future?
That focus on the patient journey also echoed Nelson’s keynote message about the gaps created when healthcare systems operate in isolation. Both sessions pointed toward the same opportunity: building stronger connections between the people who deliver care, the systems in which they work, and the communities they serve.
Continuing the Conversation
Throughout the day, the SHARP Symposium demonstrated the value of bringing research and practice into the same room. From emerging research projects to discussions about policy, implementation, equity and the realities of frontline practice, the Symposium created space to ask not only what the evidence tells us, but what we can do with it.
As pharmacy continues to evolve, that connection between evidence, policy, practice and patient experience will be essential to ensuring that innovation translates into meaningful improvements in care, and that the healthcare system being built is one that patients can actually navigate, access and trust.
Want more from the SHARP Symposium and OPA’s professional development? Explore the event gallery below and discover our PD offerings here.
