AIMS (Assurance and Improvement in Medication Safety)

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The AIMS (Assurance and Improvement in Medication Safety) Program is a standardized medication safety program that will support continuous quality improvement and put in place a mandatory consistent standard for medication safety for all pharmacies in the province. Its goal: to reduce the risk of patient harm caused by medication incidents in, or involving, Ontario pharmacies.

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The program enables practitioners to learn from medication incidents, and better understand why they happen and how they can be prevented. Utilizing both a preventative approach through proactive reviews of work processes to identify areas of risk and retrospective reviews of specific medication incidents, pharmacy professionals will be able to identify learnings that will help prevent incidents and enhance patient safety.

AIMS Data:

The College has developed an interactive tool that allows pharmacy teams and other stakeholders to view aggregate, anonymous medication safety data available through the AIMS program.

AIMS Training and Resources:
  • AIMS Program e-Training
    Community pharmacy staff must complete the six e-Learning modules that introduce the AIMS Program and provide information on the expectations for pharmacy professionals and on how to use the AIMS Pharmapod platform. The modules take less than one hour to complete. Effective implementation of the AIMS Program into a pharmacy requires all pharmacy staff to have a full understanding of the program and how to use the tools available on the platform. After completing each module, registrants can print a certificate of completion to confirm they have reviewed the content. This certificate of completion may be kept for your own records and does not need to be submitted to the College.
  • Pharmacy Safety Self-Assessment User Guide
    Overview and guide for completion of the Pharmacy Safety Self-Assessment (PSSA), which the pharmacy must complete for the first time by December 31, 2021.
The AIMS Program:
  • Requires shared accountability between pharmacies, for the systems they design and how they support staff; and pharmacy professionals, for how they manage medication incidents;
  • Emphasizes learning and accountability, through a safety 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.