Pharmacy class project evolves into real-world service

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Two local pharmacies are now offering take-home HPV self-testing kits as a way to increase accessibility to cancer screening, thanks to an idea that began in an undergraduate pharmacy course at the University of Alberta. 

Aileen Jang, owner of Medi-Drugs Millcreek and Medi-Drugs Clareview, was the mentor for a group of students in Pharm 413 who pitched the service as an alternative to traditional cervical cancer screening. 

The course offers pharmacy students an opportunity to get perspective and feedback from a practising pharmacist, along with a stronger understanding of what working in their field will be like as they conceive of a beneficial new service with the potential to be implemented. 

Jang, who has been a mentor for the course for several years, was particularly interested in services that focused on cancer screening. 

“They consult with the mentor and start trying to understand what service would be beneficial, what is needed and where the gap is, and then look at the literature,” explains Tatiana Makhinova, instructor for the course and assistant professor in the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

With Jang’s interest in preventative services in mind, the students saw that HPV and cervical cancer were on the rise, but pap test uptake remained low. By offering a take-home alternative to the pap test, which is the main way to screen for cervical cancer, the new service could help more women get screened. 

The group brainstormed a few ideas before landing on the HPV self-test kit as an accessible service that could feasibly be implemented in real-world pharmacies and make a difference for Jang’s patients.

“They saw something needed to be done to catch people earlier on, so that’s how they came up with the idea,” says Makhinova.

“Because HPV is so highly linked to cervical cancer, we thought this would be a good bridge between pharmacists and cancer care and screening,” says Fanni Pupaza, a PharmD student who was on the project team. 

The students found an accurate and user-friendly HPV self-test kit available from an existing provider, Switch Health, which allowed them to create a road map for how the service could be delivered.

The new service is relatively straightforward, explains Pupaza. Interested pharmacy patients get a take-home testing kit from the pharmacist, who can educate them on how to use the kit and why it can be an effective screening tool. After taking the test at home, the patient sends the kit to Switch Health’s processing lab, where they handle everything from the samples to the patient data. 

Patients who receive a positive result are connected with specialists in their province — a feature the students felt was a huge priority. 

“That put our minds at ease to know that if we’re setting up something like this service, there would be an appropriate referral pathway to get patients the help they need,” says Pupaza.

Cervical cancer is the fastest-increasing cancer among females. The discomfort of the standard screening method may be partly responsible for why screening rates aren’t likewise on the rise.

“The test can be daunting and uncomfortable for a lot of people,” says Pupaza, causing them to avoid or delay the screening. The kit allows patients to take the test in the privacy and comfort of their own home. And since it can be obtained from a discussion with a pharmacist, people without access to a family doctor or gynecologist who may have struggled to find a pap test provider can easily get screened with the kit. 

“It’s often not easy for patients to find a doctor or be comfortable with a doctor, so this is a service we can offer,” says Jang. 

Pupaza also notes the test is “quite sensitive and can pick up on lots of different strains. With a pap test, you’re only checking one area.”

Before implementing the service, Jang evaluated the kits to ensure their accuracy. Once satisfied, she debuted them in both her pharmacy locations. She’s currently developing a few strategies for promoting the service, including in-store promotional materials and updates to the pharmacy website for patients who may be searching online. 

She says early responses have been encouraging: “I’ve given it out to a couple of young women and they were really excited about it.” 

All involved agree that the service could have an even broader reach.

“Once one pharmacy demonstrates success with a new service and it becomes known to others in the community, that could certainly be scaled up,” says Makhinova. 

“I think there’s a wide variety of places where this could be implemented in the future,” adds Pupaza.