April 30, 2010: Community Pharmacy Incident Reporting Program
ISMP Canada has developed the Community Pharmacy Incident Reporting (CPhIR) Program (www.cphir.ca), with support from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, to allow community pharmacies to document and analyze contributing factors that can cause errors in the medication-use system. Through an understanding of these contributing factors, community pharmacy teams can then develop and implement system-based strategies for improving the quality of medication therapy in the community and preventing medication-related incidents. Input to the program from pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in Ontario and Nova Scotia (the latter through the SafetyNET-Rx Phase I pilot project, 2008–2009) has been extremely helpful and greatly appreciated.Of note, SafetyNET-Rx, a program dedicated to medication safety and continuous quality improvement, has now been expanded from 13 to 72 community pharmacies in Nova Scotia. A training session held in Halifax in early April 2010 is described in an article posted at www.stfx.ca/news/view/2151/.
The CPhIR Program contributes to the Canadian Medication Incident Reporting and Prevention System (CMIRPS) (www.ismpcanada.org/cmirps.htm). A goal of CMIRPS is to analyze medication incident reports and develop recommendations for enhancing medication safety in all healthcare settings. If you would like more information about the CPhIR Program, please contact ISMP Canada at cphir@ismp-canada.org.
