Grant: Catalyst Grant: Post Market Drug Safety and Effectiveness

We are investigating the feasibility of using community-based pharmacists to identify and monitor pregnant women on treatments for high blood pressure. High blood pressure is the most common medical condition in pregnancy and the outcomes and side effects of the medications used to treat it in pregnant women are poorly understood. Community pharmacists are highly accessible health care practitioners - people see their pharmacist seven times more frequently than their family practitioner. Drs. Marra and Lynd are pharmacists/epidemiologists who have conducted large scale research using community pharmacies, while Drs. von Dadelszen and McGee are world leaders in the diagnosis and management of high blood pressure in pregnancy. The high prevalence of the conditions of focus (i.e., pregnancy and hypertension), and the history of success of the Community Pharmacy Research Network (CPRN) in studying other populations in BC, make this demonstration project targeting pregnant women highly feasible and ensure that it will provide applicable data within a short timeframe (i.e., one year). This model, which focuses on hypertension specifically, could also be easily extended to monitor the safety and effectiveness of the treatments for other disorders in pregnant women, enhancing this study's breadth and expected impact.