Yasmin Aboelzahab, PhD candidate, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Supervised by Lisa Dolovich, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and Andrew Pinto, Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Project Title: Virtual Care in Community Pharmacy Services: A Scoping Review and Resulting Recommendations for Practice and Policy

Project Summary: The COVID-19 pandemic showed that virtual care is essential for community pharmacy services when it is not possible to meet patients in person. Virtual care was used more often to make sure patients still got the care they needed while staying safe from COVID-19. Community pharmacists have used virtual care to provide remote pharmacy services for patients, a practice still in use after the critical times of the COVID-19 pandemic. These virtual community pharmacy services can contribute to effectively decrease the burden on other healthcare sectors and increase the quality of patient care. To the best of our knowledge, the use of virtual care in community pharmacy services has not been comprehensively reviewed.

The proposed scoping review aims at mapping the literature and exploring research gaps within the scope of the use of virtual care in community pharmacy services. Additionally, the review will identify the types of virtual care platforms used in the delivery of community pharmacy services and explore their use, barriers, and facilitators during the pandemic. This scoping review can increase pandemic readiness and resilience by identifying opportunities to improve access to healthcare services and maintain continuity of care through virtual care in community pharmacy services.