The B.C. Premier’s Awards are awarded to the most outstanding projects, teams or individuals in the public service showcasing distinguished examples of professionalism, innovation and collaboration. It is considered the most prestigious recognition event in the provincial Public Service.
British Columbia’s PharmaCare Minor Ailments and Contraception Service (MACS) was selected as a finalist in the most recent Premier’s Awards for Innovation and Excellence.
The MACS program was launched in June 2023 and enabled pharmacists to provide assessments and write prescriptions for a list of 21 minor ailments and contraception. During the first two years of the program, pharmacists enabled enhanced access to health care for British Columbians in all corners of the province by seeing more than 590,000 patients and conducting nearly 1 million MACS assessments.
Colleen Hogg, Chair of the BC Pharmacy Association, said the program being selected as a Premier’s Award finalist recognizes that the work pharmacists are doing is pushing the boundaries of innovation in health care, and that pharmacists are maintaining the excellence in care that they have always provided British Columbians.
“British Columbians can count on their community pharmacists to provide accessible health care when and where they need it,” Hogg said. “By enabling and supporting pharmacists to assess and prescribe for common conditions and contraception, the B.C. provincial government is opening the eyes of the public to how pharmacists are a solution to delivering timely and sustainable health care.”
BCPhA Board Vice-Chair Kylee Power, Ministry of Health Director, Pharmaceutical Care Initiatives, Johnathan Lau and BCPhA Deputy CEO Vince Lee pose for a photo with the Premier's Award finalist certificate for MACS.
The B.C. Premier’s Awards are awarded to the most outstanding projects, teams or individuals in the public service showcasing distinguished examples of professionalism, innovation and collaboration. It is considered the most prestigious recognition event in the provincial Public Service.
“When we were designing this program, we wanted to make sure that it works in all parts of our province, whether it be more urban, or whether it be less urban in somewhere like Tofino, because we know that people in more rural and remote areas had that lower access to care,” said Connie Rim, a pharmacist in the Pharmaceutical Care Initiatives, Clinical Services and Evaluation Branch of the Ministry of Health.
As of May 2025, more than 1,500 community pharmacies in British Columbia have been involved in the program and more than 4,500 pharmacists have provided at least one MACS assessment.
Suzanne Solven, Registrar and CEO of the College of Pharmacists of B.C., said the program has made a real difference in the lives of British Columbians.
“I’ve been doing public policy for greater than 25 years, and I can tell you that I’ve never seen the partners working together to accomplish a common goal, as we did here, in a very quick timeframe. Although it’s small, incremental steps, these statistics and information is really showing a difference for the people of British Columbia,” Solven said.