Do you know the ins and outs of which vaccines pharmacists in Ontario can administer, and which ones require a prescription?
Click here for previous newsletters.
1. Counselling Conundrum: a real question from a patient
2. Concise Conclusion: a straight-forward patient-friendly answer
3. Quick Wrap-up
Clearly, there are nuances that may not be captured in this format. The goal here is to provide you with helpful counselling tips which often draw from multiple sources or those which are not commonly accessed by busy healthcare providers serving the community.
Counselling Conundrum: "I am looking to get my vaccine against RSV, as I am a senior. How does it work?"
Concise Conclusion: Historically, pharmacists were not allowed to administer this vaccine (the way it works is we have a list of injections we can give, and new ones need to be added to the list) meaning you would have only been able to receive it by your practitioner. Thankfully, this was changed in mid-December of 2023. That being said, once you receive a prescription from your doctor, I can then administer it for you.
Quick Wrap-up: Looking up a vaccine on NAPRA drug schedules does not allow one to obtain a straight answer. Instead, one must look up the routine immunization programs for each province and should the vaccine in question be included in "most" of them (we suggest greater than 50% of programs) then it is implied to be Schedule II. Conversely, the vaccine in question would be considered Schedule I (requiring a prescription) if it is not included in "most" provincial routine immunization programs. In this case, the RSV vaccine is considered Schedule I given that Ontario is the only province with a RSV vaccination program and thus patients will need to turn in a prescription. Keep in mind prior to administration that 1) although the vaccine may not need a prescription administration, it does still require an Rx for insurance billing purposes and 2) you or the patient may lack important information (e.g. necessary information for Shingrix includes immunocompromised status, previous shingles episodes, and previous doses of shingles vaccines.)
You might ask, why doesn't NAPRA simply make a list? We wondered just that. To make things easier for you, a list of vaccines that can currently be administered by pharmacists is included below.
Dive Deeper
2) Provincial and Territorial Routine Vaccination Programs for Healthy, Previously Immunized Adults - Canada.ca
3) Provincial and territorial routine and catch-up vaccination schedule for infants and children in Canada - Canada.ca
4) O Reg 202/94 | General | CanLII (see schedule 3)
We hope you have found this useful. A reply to this email with any feedback or topic suggestion you may have would be greatly appreciated. Your input will be the key to making this newsletter the best it can be.
Comments