Developing an Ontario community pharmacy-based Minor ailment service Evaluation framework (DOME).

The COVID-19 pandemic created a surge in demand for healthcare. In response to this surge in demand, the Ontario provincial government introduced a new service across community pharmacies. This is the minor ailment prescribing that launched in January 2023. The minor ailment service allows pharmacists to prescribe for thirteen approved medical conditions. Community pharmacists are easily accessible in the community and provide advice to patients seeking help for many conditions. This new service will affect the health of all Ontarians, so it is important to evaluate its us. To ensure the most optimal evaluation is conducted, it is important to bring together stakeholders, policymakers, patients and researchers. So our group aims to use this funding to bring these people together to (1) develop a set of aligned goals and priorities for the evaluation of the service in Ontario and (2) to co-identify objectives and think about how we would launch these important studies. We will do this is in three parts 1) Pre-workshop (2) Workshop and (3) Post-workshop. Initially, a series of focus group discussions will be conducted with stakeholders, policymakers, patients and researchers to determine to get their perspectives. The workshop will then bring together all participant groups for a one-day face-to-face workshop to discuss the results of the focus groups and lead participants through a priority-setting exercise. Finally, the post-workshop phase encompasses sharing the results of the workshop and allowing for final feedback from participants on the evaluation required. This proposal is the first step to launching an important number of studies to make sure that the newly launched pharmacy-based minor ailment service is evaluated and helps inform similar programs across Canada.