Implementation of Continuous Quality Assurance for Medication Safety

Feedback deadline was: May 1, 2017
Summary

This consultation is now closed.

The College is committed to patient safety and to enhancing the safe, effective and ethical delivery of pharmacy services in Ontario. We are currently seeking feedback on a standardized continuous quality assurance program (CQA) for pharmacies, including the reporting of anonymous medication incident data to a third party.

To share your feedback, please scroll to the bottom of the page and select the Online Form button.

CQA for Medication Safety

The CQA program would support ongoing continuous quality improvement (CQI) and put in place a mandatory consistent standard for all pharmacies. The objective of CQI is to support practitioners to learn from medication incidents, and to review and enhance policies and procedures to reduce the chances of recurrence, thereby improving patient safety. Learnings come as a result of both proactive review of work processes to identify areas of risk and retrospective review of specific medication incidents.

The standardized CQA program:

  • Requires shared accountability between pharmacies, for the systems they design and how they respond to staff behaviour, and pharmacy professionals, for the quality of their choices and for reporting their errors;
  • Emphasizes learning and accountability, through a culture where individuals are comfortable bringing forward medication incidents without fear of punitive outcomes; and
  • Enables sharing of lessons learned from medication incidents through reporting, resulting in ongoing process improvements to minimize errors and maximize health outcomes.

Anonymous medication error reporting to an independent third party provides data to support aggregate reviews of national trends. Through data obtained by the reporting, the College will be able to identify areas of risk and provide appropriate guidance to pharmacy professionals. Driven by our collective commitment to put patients first and support high quality and safe patient care, pharmacies will also be required to do more to ensure they are learning from medication incidents and reducing the chance of recurrence.

Moving forward with a formal quality assurance program will lead to standardized, accurate and complete tracking of medication incident information across the province and help provide a better understanding of errors and how they can be prevented to better protect patients.

View the proposed Continuous Quality Assurance Program for Pharmacies

Proposed Implementation

The College proposes a two phased approach for implementation. The first phase (approximately six to eight months) would involve volunteer pharmacies that are representative of pharmacy practice across Ontario (e.g. independent, chain, rural, urban) and would provide an opportunity to assess the program requirements. The second phase would expand by incorporating the changes and best practices identified by pharmacies in the first phase to improve successful incorporation into pharmacy workflow. Full implementation in all pharmacies is expected by December 2018.

Call for Pharmacy Practice Volunteers:The College is looking for pharmacies and pharmacy professionals who would be interested in participating in the first phase of the implementation of the CQA program. Please email communications@ocpinfo.com for more information.

Questions to Guide Your Feedback

Please consider these questions while providing your feedback.

1. Do you see the CQA program benefiting practice in your own pharmacy?

2. What would support successful implementation?

3. How could the College help with the implementation?

4. What are you are already doing in your pharmacy around CQI and continuing quality assurance?

5. Is it reasonable to implement the CQA program in two phases?

Background

Read more about the development process on the Continuous Quality Assurance for Medication Safety Key Initiative page.


Read The Feedback
89 COMMENTS
  • 1 - POSTED April 4, 2017

    I certainly applaud the College taking a lead on implementing mandatory medication incident reporting. The majority of my pharmacist career has been spent as a ‘third party’  observer, as I have primarily worked in ambulatory care (dialysis), home care, LTC consultant and as a consultant pharmacist for medication safety projects. During this time, I have discovered many medication errors. I have dialogued with their community pharmacists ‘" sometimes with good results ‘" other times, pharmacists not accepting accountability or even concern for the patient. In particular, I have been very disappointed with some independent pharmacist, who are the owner/manager/staff pharmacist, who shrug off an incident with ‘I’ll have to be more careful next time’ . How will mandatory reporting be enforced for sole practitioners? How will this happen? ‘pharmacies will also be required to do more to ensure they are learning from medication incidents and reducing the chance of recurrence’  Due the nature of my jobs, many of these errors have stemmed from a hospital discharge prescription. An opportunity exists to collate regional data, to share back with local hospitals on how they can improve transitions, wrt to medications. SO my points to consider: Ensure data fields are available to collect items such as source of Rx, handwritten vs computer generated vs e-prescribed, # of Rxs on prescription, received timely from source, patient or caregiver engagement, near miss (intervention prevented it getting to patient ‘" that is such a positive metric to collect), related to technology etc. Great review just released http://patientsafety.pa.gov/NewsAndInformation/PressReleases/Pages/pr_March_15_2017_final.aspx Clearly define what is a medication incident, so that everyone is on the same page ‘" I’m assuming that the definition on ISMP Canada’s page will be used? https://www.ismp-canada.org/definitions.htm • Example: Pharmacy dispenses new Spiriva Respimat in original box ‘" does not assemble prior to dispensing. Patient receives and does not understand how to assemble so does not use • Fragmin is ordered at 15000 units sc daily. Pharmacy does not have any weight on file and does not verify dose ‘" thereby facilitating a patient to be overmedicated leading to bleeding • Methotrexate 10mg orally weekly by the rheumatologist. No one makes the association that the patient is being followed by a kidney specialist and has renal issues ‘" despite the med profile suggesting it (calcitriol, replavite ‘" Rx’s from nephrologist). No attempt is made to verify serum creatinine prior to dispensing (and this example also goes for the new anticoagulants and oral/injectable hypoglycemic etc.) Lastly, please incorporate the pharmacists who are working in clinical roles throughout the system (FHT, home care, chemo clinics, dialysis, diabetes clinics, hospital admission etc.) When they discover errors, how can they report? If they have to depend on the community pharmacist to report on their behalf, I fear that it will not be done. Thank you for your time.

    YOU ARE A :
  • Other - POSTED May 3, 2017

    United Pharma Group (UPG) welcomes the opportunity to provide comments on the proposed implementation of a Continuous Quality Assurance (CQA) program for Medication Safety, including the reporting of anonymous medication incident data to a third party. [Read the full submission](/library/consultations/download/CQAFeedback_UPG.pdf)

  • Other - POSTED May 2, 2017

    We are currently using our incident report sheets to document any discrepancy in the pharmacy, which goes to our head office directly. I think this program encourage pharmacist to report incidents more easily without fear of punishments. Therefore, it can bring more safety and accuracy to pharmacy practice.

  • Other - POSTED May 2, 2017

    1) Do you see the CQA Program benefiting the practice in your own pharmacy? –> Yes. I believe reflection and analysis of incidents, both near misses and actual ones, is useful, and an important part of continuous quality improvement within a pharmacy. Oftentimes, when an error or near miss occurs, we do not take the time to reflect on how and why it occurred, as well as what we could do on a local/staff level to prevent it from happening again. I think we owe it to our patients to ensure that whenever incidents or near misses are made, that we take thoughtful action and considerations as to how we can ensure that we do our due diligence to improve on and learn from these occurrences. Just as with any intervention in patient care, if it wasn’t documented, it did not happen. Likewise, if we do not document our CQA discussions and activities in a consistent or standardized manner, there is no evidence that these endeavours even occurred. 2. What would support a successful implementation? –> Clear guidelines and details regarding the implementation of such a CQA program, with respect to, but not limited to: what constitutes a medication error and a near miss, what types of errors are to reported on, who should do the reporting/whose responsibility it is to implement the CQA process within the pharmacy, how and when training will be provided, etc. –> Also, a CQA program would not be as effective if there is a negative or blaming culture exists within the workplace. A culture of openness that does not allow for reprisal or blaming must be in place as the foundation for the CQA process to be established, and in order for the staff to fully engage in reporting. 3. How could the College help with the implementation? –> Set clear, detailed guidelines on what should be reported, who is responsible, how and when the training will be provided to each pharmacy, helpful resources and tools, and encourage a culture of openness within pharmacies. Emphasize that this initiative is for patient care and patient safety, not as a punitive or burdensome activity. –> Set clear and detailed expectations on what the CQA program will entail, what it encompasses, and what each pharmacy should strive to 4) What are you already doing in your pharmacy around CQI and CQA? –> Informal and open staff meetings, alerts and reminders where previous near misses and errors have occurred, encouraging increased documentation to avoid communication gaps that can lead to potential errors, open verbal communication amongst staff regarding ambiguous or problematic situations 5) Is it reasonable to implement the CQA program in two phases? –> Yes. The transition should be gradual, as a CQA program is new and the lessons learned (of what went well and what didn’t) can be gleaned and modifications made to improve upon the second phase

  • Other - POSTED May 1, 2017

    The Ontario Branch of the Canadian Society of Hospital Pharmacists (CSHP-OB) thanks you for the opportunity to provide feedback on the ‘˜Implementation of Continuous Quality Assurance for Medication Safety’ Program. The Ontario College of Pharmacists (OCP) should be commended for the efforts to ensure safe, effective and ethical pharmacy services in Ontario. [Read the full submission.](/library/consultations/download/CQAFeedback_CHSPOB)

  • Other - POSTED May 1, 2017

    This response was submitted by the Ontario Hospital Association. [Read the full submission here.](/library/consultations/download/CQAFeedback_OHA.pdf)

  • Other - POSTED May 1, 2017

    Having implemented a similar program in hospital practice, I am sharing a few comments based on experience: – Definitions: it is critical to ensure clarity regarding defintions pertaining to an ‘error’ vs. ‘incident’, and to ensure referencing a source that is broadly agreed upon not only in Canada but world-wide – doing so will help not only the practitioners and team members reporting the ‘error’, but also ensure accuracy in data analysis and reporting so that this is meaningful, and can readily guide interpreting trends, comparing trends, and reporting results; – it will be important to have a consistent ‘tool’ amongst pharmacies – recognize that some may already have a process in place that they developed and is working well for them; – provide time to train and education as well as prepare pharmacies for the ‘culture’ change in making errors transparent; – remove the stigma of reporting through a ‘no blame and no shame’ mentally – we need to report to raise awareness to errors and enable continuous quality improvement – that it is not intended to negatively affect anyone’s job/ role or be punitive.

  • Other - POSTED May 1, 2017

    I strongly agree with implementing a standardized CQA program. I believe pharmacy staff will work more focused to prevent near misses and/ errors, and if dispensing error happened they can report without fear and owners or head offices will take it serious to review all contributing factors and to improve the area of practice. of course fairness is the key point. All pharmacy staff, owners and head offices support is necessary. for a successful implementation and is more reasonable to implement in 2 phases. I believe the root cause of majority of dispensing errors is Stress, understaffed, overworked and exhaustion which need proper resolution. in my daily practice to overcome these barriers I put all my personal issues and problems back the door, take a deep breath and only focus on my practice and patient care. I fortunately have enough time to check all steps of dispensing a prescription two times. All supplies, stock, files…..are tagged and keeping organized. General information about dispensing error, when,how and where to report is posted at the dispensary as a daily reminder and information purpose, and reporting forms are easily accessible. Near misses/errors notes in the communication note book, and focus is more on improving the quantity and quality of professional services rather than the prescription count. I found these strategies are very effective to prevent dispensing errors. Thanks

  • Other - POSTED May 1, 2017

    I believe that mandatory reporting would be beneficial for all pharmacies to prevent errors in others.

  • Other - POSTED May 1, 2017

    Most of the retail chain have their own way of reporting an error if occurrd. Pharmacist should not be forced to report the errors because that will make them scared and less productive.

  • Other - POSTED May 1, 2017

    This initiative is welcomed by Muskoka Algonquin Health Care. There are a few minor comments to be considered: • The document is written as centric to pharmacists and pharmacy practice, and I am not sure that is the most useful, as the medication use circuit involves many different health professionals. • Reporting needs to be easy (downloads from electronic reports) rather than double reporting once to the internal system and then once to the external system will be essential to the success of the program. • Reporting to an independent third party, such as ISMP is important. • Standardized definitions of incidents are important ‘" will it include near miss? Will it include incidents which did not reach the patient.

  • Other - POSTED May 1, 2017

    the ONLY way to bring errors to near zero is to eliminate multitasking of the pharmacist and to let him concentrate. Currently pharmacists in retail in Canada are cashiers, phone operators, injectors, floor stock boys to direct customers where the diapers are, inventory counters….. , anything but their real job. This can only be achieved by forcing pharmacies to provide enough technicians and staff. If it is not profitable for their "business" they should get out of the "business" and start a fast food outlet! This must be a "profession" not a business. If college can do that (if they really care for people’s safety), they have solved the root of the problem.If not, any other action is a minor detail and a waste of time.

  • Other - POSTED May 1, 2017

    As a profession, we are experiencing a time of increased scrutiny, which includes a focus on medication errors. I believe this is a good time for OCP to be developing a framework for mandatory error reporting; however, I also believe that we should be taking a national approach, so that there is consistency amongst the provinces. There is a role for NAPRA to develop a set of universal and national standards for mandatory reporting.

  • Other - POSTED April 28, 2017

    The more the better, we can learn from other cases. we have in-store sharing system already but if we share with more people we can prevent even better.i like the idea of two phases, we can develop the best option.

  • Other - POSTED April 28, 2017

    I applaud this initiative. I think error reporting is educational. However, it completely ignores what is causing most errors in the first place: exhaustion. So many pharmacies are understaffed, and have pharmacists working 12-16 hours without a break. Head offices continue to push for speedy MedsChecks and other professional services but then base number of pharmacy assistant hours on number on prescriptions processed per hour. Finally, pharmacies are losing so much funding due to government policies. For example, if a patient insists on monthly filling but does not qualify, the PHARMACY must absorb the cost, because the government has specifically forbidden pharmacies from charging the patient or third-party. The OCP has some role to play in this, especially labour standards. Instead, we are now adding MORE paperwork. Also, some education needs to be done on the importance of error reporting. When I report an error, my assistants and even fellow pharmacists get mad because I "wrote them up".

  • Other - POSTED April 28, 2017

    Working in hospital all incidents and near misses are documented in a software program. We are encouraged to report as much as possible and given recognition for coming forward and bringing to light any situation that may put a patient at risk. Medication incidents are not only reported by pharmacy staff but by other allied health including nursing and physicians. Anyone involved with the medication process from prescribing to dispensing to administration. With pharmacist time stretch thin whether in community or hospital I ask the college to consider this. If an employer already utilizes a software based program to document medication incidents then the employer and software vendor need to develop the means to pull out the required information and forward it to the College mandated Third Party reporting system. If pharmacists are required to report the same incident 2 or 3 different times then the volume and quality of what is reported will perhaps not be as robust due to reporting fatigue. If it is kept simple then not only will medication incidents be documented but near misses will be as well.

  • Other - POSTED April 28, 2017

    As someone who has experienced a number of pharmacy errors I applaud this effort and the OCP for taking this project on. One question is once these errors are documented and in the 3rd party hands, how will pharmacists learn from the submitted errors? Given the time pressures identified by many on this page, they will not have time to browse all submitted errors. How will the learning take place? And finally is there a component which is for people like me? How can I learn and support my pharmacist to dispense the correct dose and format, etc?

  • Other - POSTED April 28, 2017

    First question …do doctors and other health professionals have this same sort of initiative coming to their practice or is it just other make work project for pharmcies to take on and consume more of our precious time , leaving us struggle to keep up and focus on the real practice and that is to work in the best interest of the patient . But when the college keeps throwing more and more and MORE . very time consuming policies at us, there is not time left to do the real job anymore and that is to fill the prescription properly. For example…the implementation of scanning..total waste of many precious hours a day, patch for patch …why are we responsible to police this FOR FREE and again time consuming . we need to get back to BASICS without all this added work and pressure follow policies that rarely have any influence on patient care

  • Other - POSTED April 24, 2017

    I strongly believe that CQI helps in safe and effective dispensing. Timely reporting can help the Pharmacist to completely focus on safe dispensing. Reporting and discussing within the team would help one to be proactive .

  • Other - POSTED April 21, 2017

    Until Big Chains/Franchises allow for more help for pharmacy staff, all this talking won’t help. The bottom-line that you are striving for’¦’¦is NOT the same BOTTOM-LINE. Yes it is business’¦.. yet having been in independent business for 23 years’¦’¦..business can be done better’¦’¦not just for Head Office Bosses pockets!!!!

  • Other - POSTED April 21, 2017

    In England one pharmacy chain has an inbuilt system in the dispensing software that tracks any cancellation of a processed prescription(filled prescription) by asking for a reason for cancellation eg wrong dose, wrong patient etc. These are then populated as errors/near miss. Building such system into the workflow would positively impact time management. I believe such a system can be developed and can anonymously transmit the data to a third party.

  • Other - POSTED April 21, 2017

    2 phases, absolutely. Let’s get it right, practical, simple and useful before rolling it out. Otherwise it is just more work for everyone.

  • Other - POSTED April 18, 2017

    Thanks for this consultation. 1) The move to make "errors" appear "a part of doing business" when we are taught that they are unacceptable is concerning. It’s one thing to require reporting for statistical purposes; but to even consider there ought not to be consequences is a public disinterest. Any such reporting cannot, in any way, be tied to assurances that if the complaint process is pursued by a victim of such errors, there will be lessened "penalty" by considering that a reply to the complaint that "I reported it" should lessen the impact of the offence. The systems should already be in place to prevent them from occurring, especially given case after case after case being reported to the membership in the official publication to members. 2) No sense of "nothing can happen to me if I self-report" can become the norm. The "other process" (right to file a complaint) has to be kept SEPARATE AND APART from "ISMP/anonymous reporting". The two cannot be co-mingled ("putting selves into the patient’s shoes" is for the complaints process, not the "future prevention" aspect). 3) Publication of errors that proceed to a disciplinary hearing in the panel’s findings include what the panel calls "general deterrence" for the profession. If a member practising at the time of publishing these matters doesn’t use the case, findings, and penalty as "deterrence" against future such cases, then it’s not a deterrence. So — a future occurrence of similar matters after that time should ESCALATE the penalty…not be the same and not be watered down by the fact that "3rd party reports were made" because that should be the requirement in ALL cases as professionals. It should be "brownie points" if the victim files an official complaint to lessen the due process that the public expects — because they "know" that errors are now reportable. But they still expect "justice" through the "public interest protection" mechanism afforded via the RHPA — notwithstanding 3rd party reporting which should "lessen/eliminate" these occurrences according to why it’s being required in the first place! 4) There are essentially only two categories justifying reporting: i) near misses (ie, caught before dispensing), and ii) errors (not caught and dispensed). Category ii) can be subdivided into "harm or no harm to the patient." Who is going to know if "near misses" are not reported? If it’s corrected before it’s dispensed, it’s of no negative impact to the patient. The record of dispensing will be accurate, and so, no trail for an OCP assessor to see will exist if it’s not done. Since internal CQI should already be in place, these should be discussed at regular staff meetings and not require reporting to a 3rd party agency — because if not done consistently, it’s missing the intended goal. 5) Since the Code of Ethics that we all now are to have read requires (section 2.3) that "members disclose medical errors and "near misses"…these require definitions (as some have already commented upon) — [Non-maleficience section]. 6) So consider this now: you create a dbase somewhere that such incidents, in an ideal world, all get reported to. The busy pharmacist in today’s reality signs on in the morning (or at shift start) and then…WHEN do they go to this user-friendly (ideally) dbase to review it, and WHERE do they go to review it without obstacles in their way? It should be front and centre on the OCP homepage for achieving the goal of education and future deterrence, and be both public and member accessible since identifiers have been removed. 7) If this dbase will not be used to effect action on regular offenders within a specific location (similar to the MOHLTC not using the drug monitoring dbase to allow dispensers to check on specific locations, etc. unlike PharmNet in BC), then how, if a specific location reads the data but continues to commit errors, is the goal being achieved? Would the "efficacy" of the program not require reconsideration, if it’s going to be kept? Thank you.

  • Other - POSTED April 17, 2017

    In responding on behalf of our organization, we commend the action of the Ontario College of Pharmacists to implement a standardized continuous quality assurance program for pharmacies, including the reporting of anonymous medication incident data to a third party. Our key feedback is a request for clarity around ‘anonymous’  reporting. Would a centralized report submission solution on behalf of our pharmacies be permissible, such that the pharmacy is not required to complete double entry of the same error report information on both our internal platform and a third party platform?

  • Other - POSTED April 17, 2017

    Good initiative as the anonymity will encourage reporting and the blame mentality will be reduced. This is a good step forward in ensure safe practices and building trust and confidence in the patient population.

  • Other - POSTED April 17, 2017

    While it is important to have a measure such as the one proposed in place for data purposes, the College must ensure that the collection of such data will not result in punitive actions to its members. Rather, the outputs that result from the initiative should be for education, quality improvement initiatives, and influence on future legislations. The reportable incidents should not carry direct penalties, accusations, or any sort of punitive actions or it will deter the valuable initiative of reporting and ultimately improving patient care.

  • Other - POSTED April 13, 2017

    Important Caveat: If you report to a 3rd party you might cause a lot of lawsuits that are unnecessary. The times when these unfortunate situations occur, management and staff has always gone over procedures etc. for the simple fact that no one wants these situations to occur again.

  • Other - POSTED April 13, 2017

    Currently in hospitals we are required to submit a medication incident into our incident management system (including near misses/close calls). The proposal includes pharmacy reporting of anonymous medication incident data to a third party. Would this be a requirement for hospital pharmacies as well (duplicate reporting). Would we have to enter the information into another database? Would a copy of the hospital form completed by sufficient, or would there be mandatory fields required? Is OCP going to be reaching out to each hospital to take into account current reporting that is occurring to try to streamline current processes with the proposed change?

  • Other - POSTED April 13, 2017

    Implementation of Continuous Quality Assurance for Medication Safety This program would definitely benefit any practice; however we already have an organization that has started and implemented such a program. ISMP has a national incident reporting system. To prevent duplication in implementing the CQA program, ISMP should be approached/involved to identify the barriers especially with the retail community. For any program to work, we require: 1. Concise Guidelines on exactly what should be reported, easy forms to fill (independent, franchise,’¦ to have it on line), reporting system changes 2. Education ‘Pharmacists must learn to detect medication errors, actual or potential, to understand their causes, and to propose system wide changes to reduce the risks to patients’  David U, ISMP 3. Accountability. Who is accountable to fill and document errors especially if manager is the owner/ pharmacist on duty and what incentive would be provided to stores to report medical errors? 4. Support. Overall support from all pharmacists to embrace this program. Support from manager/owner/associate to make changes i.e. scheduling, increase staffs. We are trying to improve our profession with added value to our services i.e. injection, minor ailments,’¦. and thus adding more administrative and bureaucratic work on pharmacists/technicians/manager. Overstressed and overworked pharmacists will make errors. 5. Sharing Data collection from third party to provide quality improvements. Sharing process to help understand what mechanism needs to be in place to minimize errors in retail stores or hospitals. Support, thinking outside the box and culture shift would be required from our College as well as throughout the healthcare community to see this program accepted and succeed.

  • Other - POSTED April 13, 2017

    I am always dismayed that the College of Pharmacy does not include hospital pharmacies in its overall vision – we have had medication incident review channels for years. This makes me feel that retail pharmacy is considered "real" pharmacy and that hospital pharmacies are just a tag-along after-thought. Exams aren’t focused on our experience and now this review is reinventing the wheel for "pharmacy" in Ontario when it is already ion place for a viable segment of pharmacy. I don’t know whether the College does this deliberately or if this an oversight? I hope that changes in the future include hospital pharmacy from the beginning or at least as a separate but equal entity. If we need more input from the hospital pharmacy segment, then please contact us!

  • Other - POSTED April 12, 2017

    I would hope for a reporting tool that is easy to use and not cumbersome (i.e selecting from list of what "error" is) – with the ability to also have a place to describe the errors if necessary.

  • Other - POSTED April 12, 2017

    Handwritten prescriptions can lead to errors.Rechecking with MD office is time consuming and delays patient care. Thoroughness should not be compromised for speed,as each prescription requires some amount of therapeutic analysis by the pharmacist.In very busy pharmacies the pharmacist is under tremendous pressure to churn out prescriptions super fast, speed in filling prescriptions is dangerous just like speeding in traffic, unfortunately unlike in traffic there is nobody to monitor if someone is going too fast, on the other hand, the pressure is do even faster. Maybe there should be some kind of reportable time frame established for filling different kind of prescriptions as a quality control measure.

  • Other - POSTED April 12, 2017

    Many hospitals already have mandatory reporting systems in place for patient incidents including medication incidents. Integration with existing systems would avoid duplication and improve compliance.

  • Other - POSTED April 12, 2017

    The initiative sounds promising and logic theoretically. Practically, the OCP has to work on clarifying when to report and encouraging the reporting in a reassuring not threatening or punishment environment.

  • Other - POSTED April 10, 2017

    It is unclear in the document Continuous Quality Assurance Programs in Pharmacies if it refers to hospital pharmacies as well because the article only mentions communities pharmacies. I am speaking on behalf of hospital pharmacies who are now regulated by OCP. This initiative should include hospital pharmacies. We have been reporting all medication incidents voluntarily to ISMP Canada for about 12 years, which has been tremendously helpful in understanding systems and human contributing factors to errors. I agree it should be mandatory reporting but we have to be careful how to implement this. It is very time consuming to report all incidents including near misses, not to mention the time it takes to do root cause analysis for some critical incidents. Incidents happened in the community are very different from incidents happened in the hospital because there is another complex layer of administration by nurses. Hospitals are already mandated to report critical medication and IV incidents to NSIR for a few years but the system is very too cumbersome and time consuming. We use ISMP Canada’s Analyze-ERR tool which is manageable. I suggest in the task force, there needs to be a physician, nurse, and patient rep in addition to pharmacists and technicians, or patient safety related personnel. Perhaps there should be two separate groups for the phase 1 and 2 – community pharmacies vs hospital pharmacies. Perhaps the focus of analysis should start with high-alert incidents before tackling all incidents.

  • Other - POSTED April 10, 2017

    This is a great step to built quality into the process of dispensing of a drug through quality assurance process in a consistent manner, which will ensure the patient safety. Furthermore, our commitment towards patient safety is unconditional. We are accountable and responsible through social contract to ensure the patient safety. In the bigger picture the outcome will further consolidate the trust of the profession.

  • Other - POSTED April 10, 2017

    As a parent, I trust and rely on our local pharmacists as an important part of our medical system. Error reporting could help identify common patterns or errors that occur frequently across locations. This could assist in procedure improvements and/or label changes to support the pharmacy teams. Pharmacy is a difficult line of work. Anything that can be done to further support the profession should be.

  • Other - POSTED April 10, 2017

    I think it is good idea to share information on errors will help prevent any incidents to be repeated. For improvement of our profession.I totally agree with the idea that this plan be implemented.

  • Other - POSTED April 7, 2017

    A lot of good points have been made that I agree with. I support a mandatory reporting system, and evaluation of these reports that lead to recommendations and change. I think the reports should be made directly to ISMP, as they have a huge amount of expertise in this and have the infrastructure and dissemination means to support this initiative. They will likely need increased funding and staff. I want to focus my comments on the Ontario Government’s role in this. If my calculations are correct, there have been $1.25 billion in cuts to pharmacies in recent years. It is also my understanding that there are 2,000 pharmacists out of work in the province, and wages have plummeted by as much as 40 to 50% in some areas. I personally have been unemployed since being laid off because of the cuts 3 years ago. I’ve had to leave the province to look for work, which after 8 months I have finally secured a job in a very small town in Alberta, albeit in retail rather than in my specialty field of psychiatry and addictions. The pharmacy staff that remain after the cuts are understaffed, overworked, overwhelmed and burnt out. It is a small wonder that there are errors. It is high time that the government take responsibility for their major role in this!

  • Other - POSTED April 7, 2017

    preferably on an on-line format to cut down on paper-flow, also linked to pharmacy software programs like kroll etc,security of site to prevent identifiable factors,

  • Other - POSTED April 7, 2017

    I’m glad that our profession continues to focus on quality assurance and better patient healthcare outcomes. We have worked hard to be recognised as valuable healthcare professionals and policies and programs to improve our work are essential to maintain what we have already achieved

  • Other - POSTED April 7, 2017

    In Saskatchewan SCPP is implementing COMPASS, their acronym for medication incidence reporting and charging community pharmacies an extra $500/year on our permits for the privilege.

  • Other - POSTED April 7, 2017

    1. Do you see the CQA program benefiting practice in your own pharmacy? Not sure, as at Costco we are sharing these kind of proposed details internally and analyzed by our dead office already. Means we have a full system in place to track trends, errors, near miss, etc. On top of that details by whether the error coming from a copied prescription or a new one, lots of details. 2. What would support successful implementation? Transparency is the key, once happened report it in full. Again at Costco the consequences of not reporting is far more serious than reporting on time. 3. How could the College help with the implementation? Use Costco as an example to educate the pharmacists. Our forms are thorough and the analysis is spectacular far exceeding the industry standards. By the way that is happening in all areas of our practice, we are obliged to do a weekly full narcotic reconciliation! 4. What are you are already doing in your pharmacy around CQI and continuing quality assurance? I think I answered that already, each case is fully documented on time and reported to head office. each pharmacist has the full authority to report any error even my own errors- as a pharmacy manager-. 5. Is it reasonable to implement the CQA program in two phases? No, one giant step is needed

  • Other - POSTED April 7, 2017

    It’s always a good idea to improve quality of work. I’m enthusiastic to support improvement. However, the issue is more complicated than just report a mistake and never make it again. We already have ISMP, at our pharmacy we also have internal incidents reporting system. Adding more paperwork or just extra writing will take more of that precious time we already don’t have enough. We don’t make mistakes on purpose! Rush is a major donating source (sometimes dispensary feels like a factory conveyer). Doctors with their terrible handwritings contribute a great deal – calling, faxing, trying to reach them to clarify a prescription takes a lot of time. Medications going on back order ‘help’  as well. And so on, and so forth. Would be very helpful to have one centralized system that includes all the parties, and observes all the factors.

  • Other - POSTED April 7, 2017

    The program will help in sharing information and learning among pharmacists and will help the college and other bodies to have access important data about errors. They can create from the data important outcomes that can help in error prevention, improving patient outcomes and enhance public trust.

  • Other - POSTED April 7, 2017

    ensuring high practice quality standard translate to better safety practice and reduce dispensing errors.

  • Other - POSTED April 5, 2017

    It is great idea to implement this program and Share these informations would help to minimize errors. Pharmacist has to report incidents to ISMP . Keep a copy of the report in the Company and implement action plan for error prevention .

  • Other - POSTED April 5, 2017

    Please clarify the responsibility of hospital pharmacies as in house reporting for medication errors are reported by phramacy staff as well as non pharmacy staff clinicians.

  • Other - POSTED April 5, 2017

    I think it would be a good source of information. It would allow myself to see what kind of errors or near misses others had encountered and what were the contributing factors. It would be good to know which medications frequents the list or which medication is trending. How can the college help? There should be at least a minimum training requirement for pharmacy assistants before they are allowed to work in the dispensary. Managers should be required to bring properly trained staff and not just anyone whom they can pay minimum wage. Otherwise you don’t have a assistant , instead you have someone that you assists to do thier job. Sometimes errors happened when there are too many errors happening. You are good at catching it but sometimes one slips away.

  • Other - POSTED April 4, 2017

    Continuous Quality Assurance and Improvement is critical. Any mandatory reporting framework must be user-friendly and be able to integrate easily into the daily workflow of a busy pharmacist. A new system must avoid duplication and build off of learnings and best practices from other jurisdictions.

  • Other - POSTED April 4, 2017

    I think implementing it in two phases is the smartest thing to do. It is hard to think of all the issues without a test phase. Interesting the we will have anonymous reporting but not anonymous comments for the college. I think reporting is always fine

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    I think reporting to a third party will be nice, if it will replace reporting to the collage, gathering the info for database is a good idea. as long as it is not another form, if the form going to the third party can be accessed by the collage that will help minimizing the paperwork.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    There is already a national incident reporting system through ISMP (especially useful for hospitals) which reports back national issues with suggestions for altering current practice. ISMP also uses these incidents to improve QA with respect to hospital accreditation standards. Please review this method of furthering your goals so as not to duplicate reporting programs. Thanks,

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    It is a very good program,however all prescriptions issued by doctors and other health care professionals should be written electronically and reviewed thoroughly. Narcotic prescriptions should be designed specifically for Narcotics, controlled and targetted substances and to be written electronically. Too many errors are due to hand written prescriptions or the doctor didn’t review what he wrote.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    A lot of thought needs to be put into this. What constitutes an error? There are mixups that happen behind the counter in a retail pharmacy that are then caught and never reach the patient. What types of errors must be reported? Will there be a ‘severity scale’? Sometimes a patient will call and say "just fill all my meds" without being specific. Most are filled, one is missed. Is that an error? I can uderstand the intent of this – and I agree that error reporting can be helpful, but the committee setting this up will have to be very specific about what needs to be reported and what doesn’t.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    I am a hospital pharmacist working in an outpatient clinic, but I have a lot of previous experience working in community. I’d like to suggest 2 things: 1) Community pharmacists when reporting an error should/must also be able to document details of their shift, e.g. working 16 hour days, no breaks, no lunch, etc. I don’t know why we are exempt from labour laws requiring employees to have breaks, but I hope we don’t wait til a poor exhausted pharmacist working back to back 16 hour shifts makes a mistake that kills a patient and the media goes on witchhunt after pharmacists, until something is done….but that’s probably what’s going to happen. 2) I’d like to be able to report mistakes that other pharmacists have made. I see it all the time in my outpatient practice, and I would like be able to provide this feedback in case it helps prevent similar errors in the future.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    Advantage of this process is numerous. Other than what is stated in the OCP site, it will lead to data mining and will lay the foundation of development of AI. This will not work if data is not good, so the importance should be laid out to all and accumulated data should not be a property of third party and must be public. However voluntary reporting will not work unless an incentive is provided that the insurance cost will go down once a pharmacy complies. This is what we see in the financial sector.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    I look forward to the implementation of standardized reporting. It sounds like it will be more consistent for everyone and best for patient safety.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    I support the need for this quality control mechanism as I have been given the wrong medication and have been given the wrong format that included ingredients that I am allergic to despite reviewing my allergies and them being on file.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    Please implement all the recommendations of the Task Force in full, urgently and permanently with no foot dragging.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    It’s fantastic to implement this program but shouldn’t we first make handwritten prescriptions obsolete? Med errors can come from misinterpretation of a poorly written or worded hand written prescription, yet we’re still stuck decifering them every single day. Calling dr’s to confirm what they’ve written, yet the dr is gone, unreachable, etc. Anyone who works in quality control would be astonished at the fact that we’re still decifering these prescriptions. This should be the first step. The lack of quality control in pharmacy is appalling

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    Mandatory reporting will certainly help identify opportunities that exist and sharing of best practices. With that said, mandatory should not necessarily be time consuming. I am hoping a secure web-form that is easy to fill out will be implemented.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    Great idea on third party reporting and learning from trends and wide-spread practice issues. CQI/CQA programs are not a new idea. I worry about the reality of putting theory into practice. Just in the last 2 years, there have been a lot more administrative and bureaucratic downloading to pharmacy managers, pharmacists and pharmacy staff. Is the pendulum swinging too far to the other end without true consideration on the impact and consequences to developing a stronger profession and higher level of quality real-time patient care? As a pharmacist for over 3 decades, I have seen numerous changes that have not resulted in better and true value-add patient care but, on the contrary, more transaction, self-promoting and self-preservation fueled actions and outcomes. It is deeply concerning to see what has and is still happening to the profession and thereby patient-care. Unfortunately, the matter of patient safety is much broader than CQA and requires us to have a completely different mindset on changing how interprofessional and pharmacist-patient interactions occur in daily real-time practice to solve the real and complex health care issues today. I also think that the influencers, leaders and people with authority need to look at the puzzle and think very differently, thereby flipping the model upside down and even sideways if need be. Outcomes have a big part to play in driving an individual’s actions.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    Community Pharmacies do have an in-house form for medication incidents or near misses ( OCP Tools ) ISMP reporting system is also available for Community Pharmacies OCP should consider setting up a ‘ one-stop ‘ reporting system to facilitate the process of reporting Thanks

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    The CQI/CQA will not standardize the practice but will also bring consistence. The major benefit will be tabletting the results across different practice landscapes and perhaps identifying trends. Practitioners would however need to treat each error/near miss seriously and review all contributing factors and develop systems that would minimise of prevent the safety/quality issue. Regular communication between DM and the staff would be key to the success of this program. DM need to sell MSSA and accountability given that the current belief is that of blame and punishment

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    Most times errors are due to rush rush rush. Patients do not want to wait longer. Although mandetory reporting is a good idea it is retrospective. It wont stop that particular error. As a pharmacist working in community pharmacy, my say is that there should be AVERAGE limit on number of scripts being checked by pharmacist. Like some US states have, if pharmacy is doing more than 150 scripts in a day (12 hours), pharmacy owner should add additional pharmacist. Its like per prescrption and per patient….how many minutes can a pharmacist spare on average? Too less is a chance of error. Thank you.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    A lot of thought needs to be put into this. What constitutes an error? There are mixups that happen behind the counter in a retail pharmacy that are then caught and never reach the patient. What types of errors must be reported? Will there be a ‘severity scale’? Sometimes a patient will call and say "just fill all my meds" without being specific. Most are filled, one is missed. Is that an error? I can uderstand the intent of this – and I agree that error reporting can be helpful, but the committee setting this up will have to be very specific about what needs to be reported and what doesn’t.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    Sharing information on errors or near misses will help prevent such incidents to be repeated. Implementing the proposed program in two steps is a good idea, as report given by pilot pharmacies could be used to monitor and make enhancements to it.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    I think it is good idea but should be publish for pharmacy’s team to proven same error.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    There are various med incident/ADR reporting tools out there, some that are much more user-friendly than other. I think that care should be used and feedback elicited while developing a tool that captures relevant data (eg contributing factors, outcome, suggestions, etc) and is also user-friendly. I would recommend submitting a draft of the reporting tool to the volunteer pharmacies and carefully considering feedback from the end-users.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that this plan puts forth. However it is asking a lot of the staff in the madhouse that is a pharmacy dispensary to comply with all the technical and clerical suggestions that are mentioned.

  • Other - POSTED April 3, 2017

    The program/tool should make entries mandatory. As part of a pharmacist’s daily practice, he/she should enter near-misses or errors daily (almost like maintaining a learning portfolio for error prevention). With enough assurances that the information will not be used for undue accusations, pharmacists should also be reminded that it is next to impossible to have a daily practice without a near-miss or an error.

  • Other - POSTED March 31, 2017

    Have had an in-house reporting form the the last 15 years. I support the development of an anonymous reporting mechanism for both professional and personal reasons. We ask for the public’s trust in our services so we must be prepared to show we are committed to providing a safe dispensing system..

  • Other - POSTED March 31, 2017

    Good program which would prove beneficial to all pharmacies, without worry of OCP intervention, and via shared info would help provide better patient outcomes, and future error prevention

  • Other - POSTED March 31, 2017

    Currently most hospitals have an in-house reporting system for medication incidents or near misses, as well pharmacists art to report to ISMP. Community Pharmacists also report incidents and near misses via ISMP. With OCP reporting, this will be a 3rd report that will need to be completed for one near miss or incident. Moreover, if you are a consultant providing services for a client hospital, there may be a fourth requirement for reporting within your company. Has the college considered a `one-stop’ reporting system that will integrate data into ISMP reporting systems? Thank you for providing an opportunity for response and questions.

  • Other - POSTED March 31, 2017

    I believe the standards of practice allow for continuous quality assurance already but this will be a good supplement to the standard guidelines.