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Pinkal Patel loves talking to his patients, but it took some time to find a place where he could focus on it.
Arriving from India 18 years ago, Pinkal studied at the University of Toronto as an international graduate. After passing his exams, he got his first job as a pharmacist at the Foothills Hospital in Calgary.
“I got to work with a lot of [physicians] in different areas of expertise from the cancer clinic to the transplant clinic,” he said. “I got a lot of exposure, but I’ve always liked just talking with my patients, communicating with them directly.”
Craving more connection with his patients, Pinkal left the hospital after a few years to work in community pharmacy in Calgary, then in Grande Prairie.
“I really fell in love with the rural community,” he said. “It’s how people [in smaller towns] respect the pharmacist and see the big difference pharmacists can actually make for their health.”
Pinkal believes pharmacists in these communities are well positioned to get to know the stories and specific needs of their patients. In Olds, where he currently practices at the pharmacy he opened in 2022, he serves a large senior population.
“Over 90 per cent of my patients are age 50 or older, and my average age group is probably 70 years old,” he said.
With age often comes complexity, with many patients needing management of various chronic diseases and conditions like diabetes, hypertension, chronic pain, and infections. Having accurate, up-to-date information about medications and test results becomes critical for real-time integration (RTI).
“Whenever we get any prescription, [my team] are able to access the complete sheet of medications with their labs,” he said. “When I as a pharmacist come to assess, I have their current list of medicines along with all the possible lab tests, so I’m not checking only one prescription, I have the whole history with me.”
That sort of access is exactly what the Alberta College of Pharmacy’s (ACP) Legislation and Policy Manager, Monty Stanowich, was thinking when he was part of the team that suggested the real-time integration requirement be written into the College’s new standards several years ago.
“We felt that Netcare had already gotten to the point where it was an indispensable part of pharmacy practice,” Monty said. “Requiring real-time integration was the next logical step. With pharmacists prescribing and making clinical decisions, we needed to make sure that everyone was working with the most accurate and current information possible at all times.”
It’s also a huge consideration for safety.
“What if a patient picked up and started a new medication in the morning, and then has to go to a hospital?” said Monty. “If they walk into an emergency department hours later and they don’t mention it, the doctors and nurses don’t know.”
Pharmacy professionals in Alberta agreed. When the new standards were sent out for consultation, RTI was an area of overwhelmingly positive support. Once the standards were accepted, it was time to get to work on the huge logistical undertaking required to make it happen.
“[ACP] and the government worked tirelessly with software vendors to try to streamline the process and get everybody on board as smoothly as possible,” said Monty. “And government has been fantastic in facilitating the onboarding process and tracking which pharmacies were online.”
After the long marathon to process every pharmacy’s application and connect them to the system, the hard work has not gone to waste.
“Given the huge number of pharmacies involved, some delays were expected, but as of September 1, 2026, we were able to have 99 per cent of pharmacies online,” said Monty. “Overall, it’s been it’s been a great success.”
The ability to trust that information is current and complete benefits everyone, a fact Pinkal knows well.
“It plays a huge role when you can access that trustworthy information in just a few seconds,” he said. “As healthcare professionals, we often have very limited time to serve a lot of patients. RTI makes a huge difference in how time efficient we can be and how much faster we can get to really helping the patient.”
Pinkal hopes that every pharmacy embraces RTI in the same way his team has.
“Train all of your staff on how to access at least the lab results and the medication list ahead of your assessment,” he said. “Then as a pharmacist you have more time to actually talk to the patient.”
Those conversations lead to better outcomes for everyone, especially when it comes to deprescribing.
“We see so many medications with our seniors that have been prescribed by the doctor for so many years because the patient comes in and they say, ‘Okay, any problem? No? Renew,’” Pinkal said. “But doctors are so busy, maybe they never realized that it’s been years since things were checked, so maybe as a pharmacist we notice, and we can reach out to the doctor and ask.”
