CQI+ is the Alberta College of Pharmacy’s (ACP) continuous quality improvement program. It helps community pharmacy teams prevent practice incidents and respond properly when incidents or close calls happen. Thank you to all community pharmacy teams who met the February 1, 2026, implementation deadline and have all the requirements of CQI+ in place!
CQI+ is designed to improve the safety and quality of pharmacy care in Alberta. It helps pharmacy teams take a proactive approach to patient safety, supports shared learning when incidents or close calls occur, and strengthens the overall safety culture in pharmacies across the province. Thank you to all regulated members who participated in the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) Canada’s recent national survey, which helped us better understand the state of safety culture in community pharmacies.
A key part of CQI+ is the use of technology. Pharmacy teams must use their continuous quality improvement platform and its tools to manage, record, and analyze practice incidents, close calls, and safety trends. These incidents are shared anonymously with a national database called the National Incident Data Repository for Community Pharmacies (NIDR). Awareness and learning from incidents across Canada, allows pharmacy teams to improve safety strategies, which benefits both patients and staff.
There are several online practice incident management systems that meet CQI+ requirements, some of which are listed on the CQI+ platform requirements webpage. Pharmacy licensees must establish a data sharing agreement with ISMP Canada to enable the secure submission of anonymous incident data to the NIDR, regardless of the practice incident management platform they use.
Another requirement of CQI+ is that pharmacy teams have access to an online safety self-assessment tool. Pharmacy teams must complete a safety self-assessment at least every two years, or within six months of a licensee change, whichever comes first.
Remember, the Health Information Act requires licensees to submit a site-specific privacy impact assessment (PIA) to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) any time they implement a system that collects, uses, or discloses patient-identifying information. Different platforms have unique features and workflows that may include patient-identifying information, and licensees should work with their practice incident management platform provider and OIPC to understand how information is collected, used, and disclosed when the pharmacy uses the platform, in order to determine whether a PIA is required.
Among the other program requirements is the establishment of a site-specific continuous quality improvement (CQI) program for the community pharmacy that includes policies and procedures, staff training, incident and close-call analysis, action plans based on that analysis, and quarterly CQI team meetings. These meetings provide regular opportunities for the team to discuss and reflect on safety in the pharmacy.
Pharmacy teams that have not yet met these requirements are reminded to do so. As with other domains of the Standards of Practice for Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians (SPPPT) and the Standards for the Operation of Licensed Pharmacies (SOLP), the requirements outlined in Domain 6 and the CQI+ program are expected to be met.
