Check out the winner of our Public Protector Award: CareRx Pharmacy Team
CareRx provides medication and clinical support to healthcare teams in long-term care, retirement, assisted living and group home environments. They provide consultations to physicians, training to healthcare teams, and operational guidance to home operators. They have 25 pharmacies from coast to coast (14 in Ontario, 5 in Alberta, 4 in British Columbia, and one in both Saskatchewan and New Brunswick) that are not open to the public, with pharmacy teams focusing on the unique and complex medication needs of people living in care communities.
Why they won
The CareRx team has a proven track record of ensuring the continuity of medication supply and health services to vulnerable senior populations, especially in disaster situations.
During severe floods in BC in 2021, for example, CareRx implemented contingency plans to ensure patients could access their medications, which included using a helicopter to deliver meds when the roads were washed out. The teams also reallocated dispensing services to other locations to ensure continuity of medications to more than 500 seniors within the interior of the province. Two years later, when fires ravaged the interior of the province, CareRx actively coordinated with the health region and many care home operators to relocate residents as far as the Lower Mainland.
What the judges said
“Driving the role of pharmacist while making significant impact as an administrator and researcher.”
Now there is an expectation that CareRx will monitor for wildfires across western Canada every year and engage with health authorities and home operators as needed when roads are inaccessible and evacuation orders are implemented.
We asked the CareRx team
How can more pharmacies prepare themselves to step up in the case of a community emergency or crisis?
“Being prepared means making sure medications and pharmacy support continue, even when circumstances are unpredictable. CareRx has business continuity plans in place to help ensure residents continue to receive their medications and pharmacy services during these times. Since the pandemic, and through events such as fires and floods, our teams have adapted quickly to changing conditions, so care homes and residents are not disrupted.
“For us, preparedness comes down to planning, clear communication and working closely with care partners, emergency services and other key stakeholders so we can adapt in real time and find practical solutions when communities face unexpected challenges. With the escalating number of extreme weather events, each pharmacy should use provincially available resources to support continuity and preparedness planning to enhance resilience during an event. This will include backup batteries, power generators to alternative vendors to support deliveries and even receipt from different vendors. A well-defined plan enables timely assessment, activation and adjustment of operations, while ensuring clear communication with both team members and customers
when it matters most.”