Background: strep throat point-of-care (POc) testing in community pharmacies will enable pharmacist-based care for this condition. Our objective was to conduct an economic evaluation of treating severe sore throat when this service was offered in pharmacies in 5 canadian provinces. Methods: We conducted 5 separate cost-minimization analyses for the provinces of Alberta, british columbia, Nova scotia, Ontario and saskatchewan, from the public payer perspective, to estimate mean cost per patient of treating severe sore throat in 2 scenarios: 1) physician-based usual care in a family physician's office, a walk-in clinic or an emergency room (Er) and 2) a new scenario where patients received care described above or in a pharmacy offering strep throat POc testing. One-way sensitivity analyses were conducted to account for model uncertainty.

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