Pharmacy Plus PEI reaches four years with 309,500 assessments

Prince Edward Island says more than 91,800 Islanders have accessed over 309,500 assessments through Pharmacy Plus PEI since the program began in 2022. The province released the figures on October 28, marking the program’s fourth anniversary. Its latest update provides a useful snapshot of how pharmacists are being used for prescription renewals and common conditions, while leaving important questions about outcomes and system-wide effects unanswered.

Renewals account for most recorded assessments

The program currently includes 48 participating pharmacies in 15 communities and permits participating pharmacists to renew eligible prescriptions and assess and prescribe for 35 listed conditions. The provincial figures are reported as of October 15, 2026. More than 197,360 assessments were for prescription renewals—63.8% of all assessments reported. Urinary tract infection assessments exceeded 21,800 (7%); allergic rhinitis accounted for more than 9,400 (3%), cough for over 7,400 (2.4%), and nasal congestion for more than 5,800 (1.87%).

Pharmacy Plus added strep throat testing and treatment within sore-throat assessments in December 2025. The province says over 2,900 Islanders have used that service. It also reports more than $6.67 million in direct patient care delivered through the program. These are administrative service and spending figures; they do not establish how many individual visits were avoided elsewhere or whether patients had better clinical outcomes compared with another care pathway.

What the numbers do—and do not—show

The release describes assessments and people who accessed the program, but does not provide an independent evaluation, a comparison group, condition-specific resolution rates, repeat-visit rates, or a method for estimating emergency-department diversion. The province says strep services are helping divert patients from emergency departments and other primary-care settings; that is the government’s interpretation of the service, not a measured causal estimate in the figures published with the anniversary update.

The distribution also matters. Renewal assessments make up nearly two-thirds of reported activity, while several individual minor-ailment categories account for smaller shares. Those differences may reflect patient need, program eligibility, local availability, or how services are counted; the release does not separate those explanations. The totals should therefore be read as a measure of reach and workload rather than a scorecard of comparative effectiveness.

Practice guidance for pharmacists

• Check the current Pharmacy Plus PEI list and program rules before offering an assessment, renewal, test, or prescription; the authorized conditions and eligibility criteria are program-specific.
• For renewals, confirm the medication, indication, current dose, adherence, monitoring needs, and whether a prescriber follow-up is overdue rather than treating a renewal as an administrative transaction alone.
• Use the program’s assessment pathway and document the relevant history, findings, decision, counseling, and follow-up plan in the patient record.
• Refer promptly when symptoms, examination findings, medical history, or treatment response fall outside the pharmacist’s permitted pathway or require urgent assessment.
• When discussing access with patients, distinguish the provincial program’s service availability from evidence about outcomes; confirm local pharmacy participation and appointment availability.

Pharmacy Plus PEI offers a practical example of a publicly supported pharmacist-care model with measurable service volume. The next useful evidence would connect those volumes to patient outcomes, repeat care, referral patterns, equity of access, and program costs using transparent methods. Until then, the anniversary totals are informative about activity—but not proof that every assessment replaced another visit or improved a clinical outcome.

Primary sources

• Pharmacy Plus PEI marks four-year anniversary — Government of Prince Edward Island, Oct. 28, 2026.
• Pharmacy Plus PEI program information — Government of Prince Edward Island.