Table 2:
Shares of prescription volume and expenditure accounted for by the essential medicines and other drugs in the same chemical and pharmacologic subgroups in 2015, by province*
| Variable | Province; share of prescription volume or expenditure, %† | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | BC | AB | SK | MB | ON | QC | NB | NS | PEI | NL | |
| Total prescriptions, millions | 568.4 | 49.9 | 41.7 | 14.9 | 15.2 | 186.8 | 225.9 | 11.4 | 12.2 | 1.9 | 8.5 |
| Essential medicines | 44 | 48 | 43 | 43 | 44 | 44 | 43 | 44 | 43 | 47 | 43 |
| Essential medicines and other drugs in same chemical subgroups | 77 | 77 | 74 | 76 | 76 | 76 | 79 | 75 | 75 | 78 | 76 |
| Essential medicines and other drugs in same pharmacologic subgroups | 90 | 89 | 88 | 88 | 89 | 91 | 91 | 88 | 88 | 90 | 89 |
| Publicly paid prescriptions, millions | 377.5 | 31.8 | 14.0 | 7.0 | 7.2 | 147.9 | 155.6 | 5.2 | 4.3 | 0.9 | 3.7 |
| Essential medicines | 50 | 53 | 50 | 47 | 49 | 52 | 48 | 50 | 48 | 55 | 46 |
| Essential medicines and other drugs in same chemical subgroups | 83 | 82 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 82 | 86 | 78 | 79 | 84 | 78 |
| Essential medicines and other drugs in same pharmacologic subgroups | 94 | 94 | 88 | 91 | 92 | 94 | 96 | 90 | 90 | 93 | 89 |
| Total expenditure, $ billions | 26.2 | 2.6 | 2.6 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 10.1 | 7.4 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.1 | 0.4 |
| Essential medicines | 30 | 33 | 31 | 35 | 31 | 28 | 29 | 32 | 32 | 36 | 32 |
| Essential medicines and other drugs in same chemical subgroups | 63 | 65 | 63 | 70 | 66 | 60 | 64 | 65 | 67 | 72 | 68 |
| Essential medicines and other drugs in same pharmacologic subgroups | 83 | 87 | 83 | 87 | 85 | 82 | 82 | 82 | 86 | 86 | 84 |
| Public expenditure, $ billions | 10.8 | 1.0 | 0.8 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 4.8 | 3.0 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.1 |
| Essential medicines | 31 | 33 | 31 | 34 | 28 | 30 | 30 | 36 | 35 | 46 | 35 |
| Essential medicines and other drugs in same chemical subgroups | 61 | 65 | 61 | 70 | 65 | 59 | 62 | 66 | 69 | 80 | 70 |
| Essential medicines and other drugs in same pharmacologic subgroups | 82 | 91 | 78 | 87 | 84 | 81 | 82 | 82 | 86 | 89 | 83 |
Note: AB = Alberta, BC = British Columbia, MB = Manitoba, NB = New Brunswick, NL = Newfoundland and Labrador, NS = Nova Scotia, ON = Ontario, PEI = Prince Edward Island, QC = Quebec, SK = Saskatchewan.
*
Calculations are based on data from IMS Health and the National Prescription Drug Utilization Information System database of the Canadian Institute for Health Information (see Appendix 2 for details, available at www.cmaj.ca/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1503/cmaj.161082/-/DC1).
†
Unless stated otherwise.