GUYSBOROUGH — Guysborough PharmaChoice on Main St. here is one of 20 new community pharmacy primary care clinics that will soon be established across Nova Scotia.
“We are very excited… We are eager to expand our pharmacist scope of practice, to assist our primary care practitioners and to help decrease emergency room visits and wait times for our patients,” Alison Myers, pharmacist-owner, told The Journal.
The Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness, which has partnered with the Pharmacy Association of Nova Scotia (PANS) and Nova Scotia Health (NSH) on the initiative, announced on Sept. 19 the pharmacies that will be added.
“The service will help residents of our community with and without a primary care practitioner,” Myers said, when asked what having this type of access will mean to the community.
Patients, who must have a valid Nova Scotia Health Card, will be able to book an appointment online, via 811 or by calling Guysborough PharmaChoice.
“The clinics will have dedicated time to provide clinical services. Having a specific date and time to meet with a pharmacist about a particular ailment or concern will save the patient time, and provide the ability to receive care close to home,” she explained.
And, she noted, staff in the dispensary “will also have more time to provide dispensing services; hopefully, improving the experience for staff and patients.”
Myers added that their pharmacists will be able to order blood work, but it cannot be the sole purpose of the patient’s visit.
“Pharmacists can order labs during an appointment, only if it is part of providing care and the lab request is related to drug therapy management,” she explained, noting the examples of providing renewal assessment, medication reviews or chronic disease care.
The clinics will also be able to assess and prescribe, if required, for a variety of minor ailments.
“Prescriptions generated from the assessment can then be filled at the pharmacy, or sent to the patient’s regular pharmacy – the same as your primary care practitioner would do,” Myers said.
Although the addition of Guysborough PharmaChoice to the program was announced only a few days ago, she offered that local reaction – through social media sharing and discussion – “gives me the feeling that the community is also excited for the service, and are welcoming our expanded scope of practice.”
Myers noted that some of their patients have already accessed primary care clinic services in Antigonish and Port Hawkesbury.
“They will appreciate being able to get the same great service closer to home,” she said.
Myers suggested that the “biggest adjustment for our patients” will be moving from an ‘on-demand’ to appointment-based service.
She explained, “The structure of the clinic, and the fact the pharmacy staff will be divided in order to operate it, just means a bit more planning for prescription refills and medication renewals in order to leave more time for services that are more time dependent, such as prescribing for a urinary tract or shingles infection.”
Noting that Guysborough PharmaChoice has some patients without a family doctor, who they already assist with medication renewals and other minor ailment assessments, Myers said, “The clinic will now allow us to expand to ordering lab tests for all patients and help manage chronic diseases like hypertension, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.”
Primary care providers in Guysborough welcome the assistance from the pharmacy, according to Myers.
“The services offered by the pharmacy will allow for some same-day services to be completed, when the primary care provider is unavailable, without the patient having to go to the emergency room. It will also help to free up some appointment times for more complex issues requiring a physician or nurse practitioner,” she explained.
Fourteen new pharmacies will join the Community Pharmacy Primary Care Clinic (CPPCC) pilot program this fall. The six Lawton’s pharmacy walk-in clinic+ sites that were added this summer will be included as well, uniting both models under one project umbrella.
When the program launched in Feb. 2023, there were 12 sites. In May of that year, four locations were added. By the end of next month, there will be 45 clinics open in Nova Scotia.
Since the first clinics launched in Feb. 2023, community pharmacy primary care clinics have provided more than 190,000 services to Nova Scotians.
A provincial health and wellness department press release outlined that pharmacists in these clinics provide what is described as a “full scope of practice,” which includes treating minor ailments and providing medication management for chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). They can also diagnose and treat strep throat and provide publicly funded vaccines, among other services.
Allison Bodnar, Pharmacy Association of Nova Scotia CEO, noted that the CPPCC pilot project has “transformed” the way in which primary care is delivered in the province.
“What we are doing in Nova Scotia is having real impacts on the pharmacy profession and the delivery of primary care services worldwide. We are showing the world what pharmacy teams can do, and how we can change healthcare for the better. We are delighted to expand these clinics into more communities,” she said in the provincial press release.
In the beginning, Myers said, Guysborough PharmaChoice will be operating its clinic without a lot of renovation or changes, in order to better understand how it will operate and the space required.
“We did not want to wait on the opportunity to offer the clinic while carrying out a large renovation,” she added.
Once the Guysborough clinic is up and running, virtual care will also be available.
A list of community pharmacy primary care clinics now booking appointments – along with the services that they provide – is available at pans.ns.ca/cppcc.
New locations will be added as they open.
