BC, On: Mike Law, Sabrina Wong, Seraphine Zeitouny, Mary DeVera, Anne Holbook

Please describe your research project and how it contributes to improving primary care.

In our study, we will link the primary care electronic medical record data in CPCSSN with BC’s PharmaNet database, which contains information on all drug dispensing in the province. Using this unique dataset, we will quantify how many prescriptions go unfilled in BC and examine their cost, public drug coverage, and disease targets.

How did the BC-PHCRN contribute to supporting your project?

The BC-PHCRN has been a major support to this project, including providing data through the CPCSSN and through knowledge to help in the methodology. We also have many collaborators on the project who are members of the network.

What are the key messages from this project to share with stakeholder groups (i.e. clinicians, policy makers, patients)?

This analysis will build on prior work from our team that suggests BC has the highest rate of drug affordability problems in Canada. It will do this by telling us what drugs people are not filling, how frequently, and what public drug coverage might do to assist.