Health tech company makes it easier for people to connect with medical services

Patients across Ontario can now get a prescription for some common ailments without visiting a doctor's office and some pharmacies are already seeing a demand. Now, a Canadian health tech company, Medimap, is looking to make it easier for people to book an appointment with local pharmacists.

Medimap.ca already made finding walk-in clinics and other types of health care practitioners easy to find with its digital platform.

“News of expanding the rights for pharmacists to also treat some minor aliments was news to our ears,” said Teddy Wickland, Medimap’s vice president of operations.

“Letting us expand beyond just walk-in-clinics and work with these pharmacies as well.”

Medimap said it reached out to the Canadian Pharmacists Association and formed a new partnership with MedEssist, a software company that works with over 300 pharmacies across Canada.

“This strategic partnership will help Canadians utilize pharmacists' expanding scope of practice and reduce the need for people to visit a clinic or a hospital for minor ailments or non-urgent care,” Medimap said in a news release Wednesday.

Wickland said Medimap now works with MedEssist powering the booking experience to allow users to see and book appointments at the hundreds of partnered pharmacies for things like UTIs, rashes and more.

“Our new partnership with MedEssist moves us closer to our goal to help make Canada’s health care system more efficient by helping Canadians access the expanded services pharmacists in many parts of the country can now provide,” said Medimap CEO Thomas Jankowski in the release.

Medimap has also been adding a variety of medical services to its platform including physiotherapists, chiropractors, optometrists and dentists.

While some pharmacies may not offer the options you need, Wickland told CTV News the company’s platform will allow you to search using your symptoms to find a medical service that can help you, such as a walk-in clinic or physical therapist.

“Our goal is to make sure that no patient waits for care, that nobody gets sicker when they don’t have to,” said Wickland.

Wickland added the challenge with health care is that it is a very opaque system, so people generally do not know where to go or where they can be seen.

“Before Medimap, there wasn’t a system … where you can book or find an appointment for a doctor (opening) even though there may be a doctor right down the road from you that has capacity,” Wickland said.

More than 12 million Canadians have used Medimap to locate or access its network of more than 4,200 medical practices, pharmacies and walk-in clinics across the country.

“Not only does this help patients receive timely care, it also helps the healthcare system divert people away from emergency rooms to primary care services that are better suited for their needs,” Medimap said.

With files from Tony Ryma, anchor for CTV News Northern Ontario.