Anne Marie Holbrook
Professor, Medicine

Education and Professional Standing
Dr. Holbrook is a Professor in the Department of Medicine and the Director of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology. Her clinical practice combines Clinical Pharmacology Toxicology and Internal Medicine services and specializes in the care of hospitalized adults with major, multiple comorbidities, and complex or high-risk medication regimens.
She is an international leader in promoting evidence-based therapeutics through research and education, including randomized trials to improve medication safety. She regularly supervises clinical and research trainees at all stages of development, work that was recognized with a CIHR personnel award and the inaugural Department of Medicine teaching award. She is an international leader in improving trainee competence in evidence-based prescribing.
Anne is one of the most experienced expert advisors of drug policy in Canada, influencing all levels of government and budgets in excess of $5 billion annually. Sustainable implementation of a national Pharmacare program is a current priority. She has been at the top of McMaster’s academic productivity ratings since the program’s inception.

Research Interests
Dr. Holbrook's main research area is evidence-based therapeutics, with current or recent studies on pragmatic randomized trials of post-discharge management of high-risk medications, personalizing benefit: harm information for individual patients, cost-related nonadherence, the burden and harm created by medication safety decision support alerts, systematic reviews and large database studies of drug interaction impact on clinical outcomes, investigation of medication funding for vulnerable groups across Canada, and assessment of prescribing competency amongst trainees.

She was the recipient of a Career Investigator award from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research for innovation in decision-making for patients, practitioners, and policymakers. She maintains a CIHR Principal Investigator grant track record and without ties to commercial interests. She remains the lead of Canada's original electronic medical record research network (COMPETE) which develops, implements, and evaluates various e-health initiatives directed at improving the quality of therapeutics.