What’s worse: sitting at home sick, or waiting in line at a clinic?
Toronto-based healthtech startup MedEssist aims to make it easier to get care without long waits, and it’s made some progress. This week, MedEssist announced that it has onboarded 100 Ontario pharmacies to its Access to Care program, which equips pharmacies with the ability to treat more ailments, taking the load off emergency rooms and clinics. Now, the company is looking to go nationwide with new funding.
MedEssist co-founder and CEO Joella Almeida says “there’s no limit” to the treatment workflows MedEssist can add to its Access to Care program.
One in five Canadian adults doesn’t have a regular health provider, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, and one in four with a provider can’t even be seen on the same or next day for a non-urgent primary care need.
In an interview on Thursday, MedEssist co-founder and CEO Joella Almeida told BetaKit that pharmacies can fill this gap for some minor ailments in a limited and inconsistent capacity across Canada, but it could be better.
While some provinces, like Alberta, allow pharmacists to diagnose and treat many ailments, Ontario pharmacists can only treat from a limited list. MedEssist’s Access to Care tool allows pharmacists to assess patients and dispense medications for more minor ailments and immunizations. If no red flags are present, the patient may be issued a prescription on the spot. The tool provides the ability to diagnose and treat more than 20 new conditions, including treating strep throat or providing contraceptives and diabetes supplies.
“Right now, you have this vision where you walk into a pharmacy, you pick up meds, or you walk into a walk-in clinic or a medical clinic, and you get treatment,” Almeida said. “If you could blend those two together, there are way more pharmacists than physicians in Canada … that would be amazing for community density and healthcare in [communities].”
MedEssist was founded in 2018 by Almeida and CTO Michael Do to offer a platform for pharmacies to modernize their operations with digital refill, vaccine, and medication inventory management. Almeida said “there’s no limit” to the treatment workflows MedEssist can add to its Access to Care program, and aims to add two per month.
MedEssist was recognized as one of BetaKit’s Most Ambitious in 2025 for its quest to turn pharmacies into clinics. Almeida said reaching 100 pharmacies with the program shows that “people are ready.”
RELATED: MedEssist offers pharmacists medication delivery through new partnership with Uber Direct
“There is capacity, and they want to do it,” Almeida said, claiming that their independent customers think it’s “really cool” that they can actually help patients.
The milestone follows recent investments from Staircase Ventures and returning investor Hyperplane out of Boston. The investment brings MedEssist’s total funding to date up to $6.5 million CAD, a previously undisclosed figure. Almeida called the recent funding a seed investment, but did not disclose the specific amount raised. She added that MedEssist’s next round will be a Series A “if we need it.”
That financial injection will be crucial to the company’s goals of expanding its services across Canada, and particularly in regions grappling with overburdened healthcare systems and physician shortages.
“We want to bring [the Access to Care program] to more provinces,” Almeida said. “We’re definitely using it in provinces like British Columbia and Manitoba, but there are places where one in four Canadians don’t have a family doctor. So that’s one [area of expansion].”
Almeida said MedEssist has also been piloting the program in the US, hoping to prove a use case south of the border.
“In the US, it’s really expensive, and it’s not as abnormal to have urgent care clinics,” she said. “But those urgent care clinics are pretty expensive. So, again, it’s an alternative.”
In November 2024, MedEssist launched a new integration with Uber’s white-label delivery service to expand access to same-day medication delivery for pharmacies across North America. Including its Access to Care users, MedEssist is used by more than 700 pharmacies across North America.
Feature image courtesy MedEssist.