College Connection | Winter 2025
Safety considerations when delivering medications
College Connection | Winter 2025
Safety considerations when delivering medications
The trend of online purchasing and home delivery shows no sign of losing steam. The convenience the public has experienced with home delivery continues this demand. We see this happening in the animal space with online purchasing and delivery available ranging from pet food to pharmaceuticals.
This has sparked interest and innovation recognizing clients may travel far to pick up medications from their veterinarian’ s facility. Mobile veterinarians travelling to clients may deliver pharmaceuticals and products and be seeking ways to streamline or outsource this service.
All veterinarians can deliver drugs they have prescribed for an animal to clients’ addresses from their accredited facilities. When a veterinarian is prescribing and dispensing drugs, College rules permit these activities to only occur from a College-accredited veterinary facility.
When delivering a drug to a client, there are rules and guidelines, which apply to veterinarians regardless of what accredited facility they are delivering from, not just those accredited with a satellite location.
When a veterinarian and their client decide to send a drug to the client’ s address, the College expects the veterinarian to follow the regulation requiring a delivery method that allows tracking and gets a signature from the person receiving the drug.
Facility directors can have systems and protocols in place for drug security and safety at point of delivery. This includes proper storage and handling of pharmaceuticals and biologics which adhere to manufacturer’ s recommendations ensuring the drug’ s integrity and efficacy.
For example, the drug must be kept at an appropriate temperature during delivery and if the client is unavailable to receive the drug upon delivery, then the drug should be returned to the accredited facility. Until the drug has been safely handed over to the client, the veterinarian remains responsible for the drug and retains custody.
To conclude, while applying for a satellite location for dispensing is one model for home delivery of drugs a veterinarian has prescribed, any accredited facility can determine an appropriate delivery method to clients
Background on satellite locations for dispensing: Federal changes to medically important antimicrobials in 2018 caused the food animal sector to pivot. The College introduced a policy on satellite locations for dispensing pharmaceuticals and biologics, excluding controlled substances.
The aim was to address the issue of food animal veterinarians purchasing large amounts of drugs, storing them, and delivering them to the farm. The College’ s rules permit prescribing and dispensing to only occur from a College-accredited veterinary facility. Most food animal mobiles had base units unable to accommodate the large orders of drugs they needed.
The policy permitted a separate location, large enough to store bulk drugs in inventory, as an extension of the veterinarian’ s accredited facility. Once established, the veterinarian directly. When doing so, rules protect the integrity of the drug so that it arrives to the client safe and ready to use.
can deliver pharmaceuticals and biologics to clients directly from their accredited facility through the satellite location.
Most satellite locations for dispensing drugs in Ontario are at drug wholesalers or drug distributors. This model already includes delivery to accredited veterinary facilities purchasing through these entities. As an accredited satellite location, they deliver drugs directly to clients of accredited facilities that have this satellite location as an extension of their accreditation.
While the original aim was to address the barrier food animal veterinarians faced to purchase, store and deliver bulk drugs for herds, the model introduced a riskbased solution with a potentially broader reach to companion animal and equine clients. College Council revised the policy in 2022 to include all species.
Public confidence in veterinary regulation cvo. org 6