Alberta pharmacy-led clinics could help reduce unnecessary emergency room visits, study finds

Article content

Alberta’s model of pharmacist-led clinics is gaining increasing attention as a way to potentially eliminate unnecessary emergency room visits.

A new study from the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI) released Thursday indicates that pharmacists in Alberta have the strongest prescribing power in the country, and that Alberta is the only province where pharmacists can prescribe in a manner independent of Schedule 1 medicines, that is to say any medicine having no medical purpose. . The study indicates that 35 per cent of avoidable emergency room visits in Canada could be handled by pharmacists.

Article content

Article content

Krystle Wittevrongel, senior policy researcher at MEI and Alberta project lead, said that while Alberta’s model is based on better use of resources, pharmacist-led clinics themselves do not replace a doctor or healthcare professional.

“The doctor can do more than a pharmacist and I don’t think anyone will object to that, but doctors don’t need to do everything,” Wittevrongel said. “Pharmacists can and should do what is intended in their training, as can nurse practitioners, who, as we are also seeing in Alberta, are playing a larger role in terms of primary care.

Canada’s first pharmacist-led clinic opened in Lethbridge in 2022. According to the report, the clinic sees an average of 40 to 60 patients each day, or between 14,600 and 21,900 patients per year.

Paul Parks, president of the Alberta Medical Association, said the system has always needed more paramedics, but it must be done consistently to avoid duplication and fragmentation of care.

In some cases, he said doctors see patients sent to the emergency room because they were misdiagnosed.

Article content

Article content

“We saw a lot of patients sent to the emergency room with really misdiagnosed, totally wrong diagnoses, because it was very clear that these pharmacists were not trained to provide that kind of care,” Parks said. “There is some danger if this is not done in a measured and connected way, and integrated with the specialists trained to make the diagnosis.”

In a statement to Postmedia, the Alberta College of Pharmacy (ACP) said the services offered at pharmacist-led clinics are “nothing new” and are already available at most pharmacies in the province. province. They warned that these pharmaceutical teams should not advertise “clinical services” or in a way that would give the public the impression that they will receive the same services from a doctor or healthcare professional .

“The important thing to remember is that pharmacists continue to work with physicians and other members of individuals’ health care teams to meet their comprehensive primary care needs. It should also be noted that pharmacies should not engage in advertising that is misleading, inaccurate or likely to mislead or misinform the public,” the statement said.

Article content

In January, the province approved a four-year, $77 million investment by Shoppers Drug Mart to expand its pharmacy clinics across the province, with a goal of having 103 pharmacy care clinics in total under the Shoppers Drug Mart banner. undertaken across the province by the end of this year. — an increase of 44 locations.

UCP Premier Danielle Smith called the clinics “a step forward for accessible primary health care” and a relief for the overburdened public system.

“Increased accessibility will relieve enormous pressure on doctors’ offices and hospital emergency rooms and people in difficulty will not have to travel far or spend as much time waiting or suffering to receive medical assistance” , she said.

Article content