Medication incident reporting has long been a recommended part of the practice of pharmacy in Canada to protect patients’ health and well-being. In recent years, it has been a priority of provincial/territorial pharmacy regulatory authorities (PRAs) to move towards implementing mandatory reporting programs. These programs improve the ability to analyze and learn from medication incidents and near misses, so that pharmacy professionals may continually improve the quality of pharmacy practice to prevent and mitigate risks to patients.

In order to help harmonize policies and procedures around continuous quality improvement and medication incident reporting across Canada, the National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities (NAPRA) includes in its current strategic plan the goal of “creating new standards for the reporting and analyzing of and learning from medication-related incidents”.

With Board approval in May 2021, NAPRA is extremely excited to see this project move forward to the publication stage. The overarching goal is for pharmacy professionals to use the information collected through medication incident reporting not for punitive reasons, but rather to make system and practice improvements that contribute to continuous quality improvement within pharmacy settings, ensuring that patient safety remains the highest concern.

The final document entitled “Model Standards of Practice for Continuous Quality Improvement and Medication Incident Reporting by Pharmacy Professionals” is expected to be published in the third quarter of 2021.