Med Wise

The Cause

Med Wise and IMAGINE Citizen Ambassadors come together to provide medication life skills to Seniors in Alberta.

The project has two complimentary components: test basis for Med Wise and test basis for Community Ambassadors. The intent is to pilot an informative, peer-led, three week course that is dedicated to promoting safe medication practices to seniors with medication related needs.
Seniors, those 65 and older, in Canada by 2036 are expected to represent up to 25% of the population. Seniors take 40% of all the prescribed drugs.

The Med Wise program is designed to:
1. improve seniors’ ability to manage their medications
2. build the seniors’ confidence to communicate effectively with their pharmacists.
3. provide application of proactive patient communication in pharmacies
4. Build foundation for senior led deliver of future Med Wise programs across the province.

The joint effort is between IMAGINE Citizens Collaborating for Health, who will be the Community Ambassadors providing the peer leadership and the Faculty of Pharmacy, who will provide the program material and resources.

The Med Wise pilot project is tentatively scheduled to run in Cold Lake in September, 2019 and will consist of 3 groups of 15 seniors. Two groups will be from Cold Lake and surrounding area and the third group will be members of the seniors from Cold Lake First Nations.

Depending upon the outcome of this pilot project the potential for growth could be not only provincially but across Canada.

Who Will it Benefit?

The project will initially benefit only a small group of seniors, those participants of the pilot project.
But, we must factor in that this is a test pilot, the data collected from the project will be used to hone the project to insure it is a “Alberta” based model and the foundation will be set to implement Med Wise province-wide to all seniors. The potential is there for a Canada wide program.