Grant: Project Grant

People living in rural, remote, and Indigenous communities face major barriers to accessing medications. Patients often must travel long distances at high cost, which can lead to missed treatments, poorer health, and stress for families. This project will test a new way of improving access by combining virtual pharmacist care with drone-based delivery of medication. Virtual pharmacist care allows patients to speak with a pharmacist by phone or video from their home, while drones can safely transport medications directly to their community. Our team has already piloted drone deliveries in northern British Columbia with over 1,200 successful flights. We now aim to add virtual pharmacist consultations and evaluate how the combined service works in a real-world rural and remote setting. Working in partnership with Indigenous leaders, community members, health care providers, and policy makers, we will study whether this model reduces family costs, improves medication use, and provides culturally safe care. We will also assess how the service can be sustained and expanded to other communities in Canada and globally. By reducing travel, saving costs, and improving health equity, this project has potential to transform access to medications in underserved communities across Canada.