REGINA – A pilot project is coming in to allow pharmacists to expand the care they provide for patients in the province.

It was announced in Regina Wednesday that the province will be expanding the scope of practice for pharmacists to be able to test for strep throat and ear infections. 

Health Minister Everett Hindley said this expansion “will resonate with many people across the province, and particularly I would think with parents of young children, and anyone who is perhaps faced before the early evening hours with a sick kid, for example.”

New training will be offered to pharmacists that will allow them to be able to do rapid testing for strep throat, where they can collect a lab sample and test it on site, with results of the testing available 10 minutes. They will also be able to do physical assessments for ear infections. The pharmacist would then have the ability to prescribe and provide the medication to treat these conditions. 

“This is brand new training for the pharmacists,” said Danielle Larocque, Director of USask Continuing Pharmacy Education at the University of Saskatchewan. She said it will include some online training  “and then it’ll be some hands-on physical assessment where they learn how to use an otoscope for assessing ear infections as well as learn how to do the strep test for strep throat.” 

In addition to the training, the government is investing $700,000 in launching a pilot project this fall to support the testing and assessment.

Ten pharmacies will be selected to conduct the on site testing for strep throat and assessments for ear infections, while 50 sites will be chosen to offer ear infection assessments.

The province will work with the Pharmacy Association of Saskatchewan to identify which pharmacies will be interested, and there will be criteria used in selection. More details on the pilot project will come out once the pharmacies are chosen.

Hindley said this will particularly benefit rural and remote communities where the pharmacy might be the only place in the area where residents can access healthcare. “So by expanding the scope of practice, that really optimizes their skills, builds additional capacity in our healthcare system, it brings care of closer to home and allows allows patients to have greater access to healthcare services. You may have heard me say before, we are really interested about increasing that scope of practice and making sure we provide more avenues for patients where we have the right patient in front of the right healthcare professional provider at the right time.”

The province had first announced scope of practice expansion to health care professionals including pharmacists back in June 2023. Pharmacists have had the authority to prescribe for minor ailments since 2012.

“This is all about access to healthcare,” Pharmacy Association of Saskatchewan CEO Michael Fougere, saying expanded scope of practice for pharmacists is something they had been calling for for some time.

“Every professional in healthcare wants to practice at their full scope of practice,” Fougere said. “And that would be I think a much better access to healthcare for everyone around the province. In the case of pharmacists, particularly in rural and small town Saskatchewan, they’re the only healthcare professional in the area so we do want to see more services provided to the public, because it’s better access to healthcare and access is a primary issue.”