Northwest Telepharmacy launches cannabis helpline

OTTAWA – Northwest Telepharmacy Solutions (NTS) has launched a cannabis helpline, staffed by pharmacists, that offers clinical expertise to the general public and healthcare professionals. The purpose is to offer unbiased, clinical information on cannabis use.

Whether it’s for medical or recreational purposes, cannabis can have an impact on a person’s health. Pharmacists can help evaluate the impact of cannabis on one’s health and the interactions it may have with other medications.

Members of the public and healthcare professionals may have questions such as:

• How will the use of cannabis influence my medical conditions?
• What are the concerns with cannabis use?
• How will the use of cannabis influence my medical conditions?
• How do I manage cannabis side effects?
• Will cannabis influence my other medications?

Questions can be answered at: 1-888-420-1522 OR ONLINE AT cannabisinfo@northwest.ca

Northwest Telepharmacy Solutions was formed to address the significant shortage of pharmacists for hospitals in remote communities within Canada.

Telepharmacy care for hospital patients has been an exciting development in Canada since its inception in 2004. This model of pharmacy services was developed and initially implemented at a small northern Ontario hospital.

The hospital consisted of 40 acute care beds including two nursing stations in remote fly-in Native communities. Since then, NTS has expanded and now provides remote pharmacy services to over 45 facilities, ranging in size from outpatient family health teams to hospitals exceeding 400 beds and employs over 100 hospital trained pharmacists.

Northwest Telepharmacy Solutions (NTS) continues to evolve and provide pharmacist services that are needed by healthcare facilities. NTS provides patient services, remote pharmacy services and technology solutions to continue to improve patient care provided by pharmacists.

The company also provides technology solutions at affordable cost points to facilitate efficient and safe pharmacy practice. Our offerings include a paperless medication order management (MOM) solution DocuScripts as well as an IV workflow solution PharmacyKeeper.

Being the primary telepharmacy provider in Canada for the last 10 years, NTS understands the current environment for hospital pharmacy services in both remote and urban located hospitals across the country and the world. NTS has been able to connect strong hospital-trained pharmacists from large urban areas to provide telepharmacy services to remote locations. These hospital sites either have no on-site pharmacists or not enough on-site pharmacists to provide a complete clinical pharmacy program.

NTS is able to provide not only pharmacy services for order review, but also comprehensive policy and procedure reviews, clinical services such as antimicrobial stewardship programs, and technology innovations.