December 2007: Risk Assessment Program for Medication System Safety in the Long-Term Care Setting
A new risk assessment program has been developed by ISMP Canada to assist and guide individual long-term care facilities in identifying opportunities to improve their medication-use systems. The program, which complements other efforts to decrease the risk of harm to residents, can be used by facilities of any size, organizational structure, and geographic location. Completion of this Medication Safety Self-Assessment helps to fulfill the long-term care quality improvement standard of the Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation.Development of the project was funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. The provincial governments of Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario are supporting the availability of this new program to facilities on a regional or provincial basis. It is hoped that the aggregate results will assist in identifying opportunities for provincial and national collaborative initiatives to enhance medication safety.
The program is also available at a reasonable cost to individual facilities that are not covered by a regional or provincial agreement. For more information, please send an email message to mssa@ismp-canada.org
