DataNB
The latest from the New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training

Over the past few years, New Brunswick’s health care system has been struggling to improve service delivery, given the shortage of primary care providers and increasing need for health care services among the province’s aging population. With the additional strain COVID-19 has placed on the system, the need to free up resources is more urgent than ever.

In 2009, changes in legislation allowed New Brunswick pharmacists to deliver an expanded range of vaccines – a change in service delivery with the potential to relieve some of the care-provision burden from the province’s physicians. However, while COVID-19 and influenza vaccines are offered free of charge through pharmacies, the same is not true of all vaccines. For the majority of vaccines, New Brunswickers must pay out of pocket if they wish to receive one from a pharmacist, whereas they can receive their vaccines for free from a physician.

In its new NBIF-funded VitalSignsNB research stream, the New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training investigated how the subsidization of physician-administered vaccines could help free up resources within the health care system. The result? A potential annual indirect cost savings of approximately $1.5 million.

For more information on the VitalSignsNB project, the research methodologies, and results, you can read the CBC interview with project lead Dr. Chris Folkins.