Emergency Medical Services Safety Initiative

ISMP Canada has contracted with the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care to enhance medication safety in emergency medical services (land ambulances). A Project Team was formed to assist in guiding this initiative.

Deliverables for the current year are:

• Identifying and prioritizing opportunities for medication safety interventions in land ambulances
• Promoting a culture of safety of paramedics.

Progress to date on these deliverables are:

• A review of available EMS error data identified potential problem spots.
• A review of medication storage and use by two medication safety experts and a human factors engineer resulted in a report outlining potential improvement opportunities.
• A new process of documenting errors is currently being tested.
• Education is planned for paramedics later in the year when results of the pilot are available.
• An informational bulletin will be used to share information with paramedics.