Every Albertan should have access to quality pharmacy care. An essential aspect of quality pharmacy care is for the pharmacy team to have a professional relationship with each patient so that the pharmacy team can properly assess and care for the patient.
When ACP implemented the Standards of Practice for Virtual Care (SPVC) in January 2023, fostering professional relationships between pharmacy teams and patients in a modern pharmacy landscape was the priority.
What do the SPVC require?
The standards are focused on ensuring every patient receives safe, effective, and person-centred care and includes guidance on the appropriateness of virtual care. Standard 3d(i) of the SPVC indicates that a regulated member must only provide a restricted activity using virtual care if the regulated member determines that virtual care will optimize and complement the in-person care a patient regularly receives from the regulated member.
Can the pharmacy provide services to a patient who they do not regularly see in person?
When regulated members provide virtual care to patients who do not receive in-person care from them (i.e., they mail prescriptions to patients they do not regularly see in person), regulated members must determine that the patient’s unique circumstances make in-person care impractical or impossible as outlined in Standards 3d(ii) and 3d(iii). These unique scenarios requiring virtual care must be assessed and documented by the pharmacist. In all circumstances, virtual care can only be provided if the pharmacist is able to complete a thorough assessment and manage the patient’s care appropriately using an enabling technology (e.g., phone, email, or video conference).
Mail order pharmacy licences
As indicated in Standard 4 of the SPVC, mail order licences are required for community pharmacies where a regulated member provides restricted activities from the pharmacy that include the dispensing or selling of drugs to a patient who does not receive in-person care from the regulated member because the patient’s unique circumstances make in-person care impractical or impossible (as outlined in Standard 3[d][ii] and 3[d][iii]).
Regulated members who work in community pharmacies with mail order licences are not exempt from complying with the SPVC. Community pharmacies with mail order licences must review and, if necessary, adjust their policies and procedures to ensure compliance with these standards. These pharmacies must achieve the same level of quality and service to patients receiving mail order services as those patients who receive in-person care.
Complying with the standards
Regulated members should regularly review the SPVC to ensure their virtual care practice complies with the standards. If a community pharmacy chooses to provide virtual care services, they must meet all SPVC requirements. This means that mail order pharmacy services are only required for patients
- who rarely or never visit the pharmacy in person, and
- only if they meet one or more of the exceptional circumstances described in Standards 3(d)(ii) and 3(d)(iii) of the SPVC.
The pharmacist must conduct regular assessments to determine whether the patient qualifies for virtual care and that the benefits of receiving pharmacy services at a distance outweigh the potential risks.
If a pharmacy chooses to discontinue providing virtual care, including mail order pharmacy services, to a patient, the pharmacist should have a discussion with any affected patients to ensure they understand the reasoning and to help them consider options for receiving care.
