On April 15 and 16, ACP hosted the 2024 spring ACP Connect sessions in Edmonton (with live stream) and Calgary to collectively consider how we can support the safety culture of pharmacy in Alberta. Three hundred and forty two registrants came together in person and online to hear from patient safety advocate, Melissa Sheldrick, and to learn about ACP’s upcoming continuous quality improvement (CQI) initiative.
Melissa is a patient and family advisor at ISMP Canada, a member of Patients for Patient Safety Canada, and a patient safety expert. Melissa’s dedication to patient safety is inspired by her personal experience as a mother who tragically lost her eight-year-old son, Andrew, to a medication error in 2016.
Melissa shares her unique perspective as a caregiver with lived experience and works at a national and international level to drive change and promote a culture of safety within the healthcare system. Her work has already contributed to the development of CQI programs in several provinces, which all include a mandatory medication incident reporting component. At the ACP Connect events, she discussed the impacts of these programs and provided a patient perspective on why incident reporting and CQI are important aspects of safe pharmacy practice.
Brett Baumback, ACP’s Quality Improvement Project Lead, then provided an overview of ACP’s upcoming CQI program for Alberta pharmacy teams: CQI+. Building on ACP’s existing drug error management framework, this new program will enable the reporting of practice incidents and close calls to a central database to facilitate learning and sharing in the interest of patient safety.
Melissa and Brett then invited and addressed questions from the in-person and virtual audiences, such as how to meaningfully involve patients in the CQI process, how to support pharmacy team members when incidents occur, and how to adapt workflows to implement a new system. The Edmonton live-stream session was recorded and can be viewed here. The presentation slides are also available here. ACP extends our thanks to everyone who was able to join us for these important conversations and we look forward to gathering again for the next ACP Connect sessions!
