Research profile: James Barker

Community pharmacy safety and policy

James R. Barker is an organizational complexity, safety and leadership researcher who specializes in how humans navigate complex organizations via safe and sustainable practices. Prof. Barker leads the Safe Assured research consortium and directs a number of initiatives in community pharmacy safety research, resilience and reliability building, risk mitigation and practical knowledge transfer. The Safe Assured team collaborates with academic and industry partners to track, address and learn from medication dispensing errors in pharmacies across Canada and in other countries and to translate that knowledge into safer and more practical workplace policies. The team has research partnerships with Shoppers Drug Mart and Pharmapod, an international pharmacy safety service and safety data aggregator. It also has working relationships with professional pharmacists’ associations, industry regulators and patient safety advocates.

The team’s present work unfolds across three trajectories: (1) data analytics for community pharmacy error reporting and safety enhancement practices; (2) safety culture implementation in pharmacy operations; and (3) regulatory and public policy governing community pharmacy practices. By helping pharmacists make their business and medication practices safer, more reliable and more resilient, Safe Assured’s research and outreach enhances public and professional safety in the larger healthcare system. Prof. Barker also continues long-standing research programs on organizational complexity theory and leading change practices in complex organizations, including practice-focused research on identifying and teaching core complexity navigation skills for senior managers and executives.