The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) Canada has released its latest Safety Bulletin: Pharmacists’ Scope of Practice in Community Pharmacy: Medication Incident Reporting Informs Continuous Improvement. The article highlights opportunities for learning for pharmacy teams with respect to clinical services that pharmacists provide. ACP was invited to review the article before publishing.
For this article, ISMP Canada used data collected from practice incidents reported to the National Incident Data Repository for Community Pharmacies (NIDR) to analyze two themes: incidents related to providing vaccinations and incidents related to prescribing.
ISMP Canada identified some common contributing factors to the incidents that have occurred and provided some tips that pharmacy teams could apply to their own practices. The article presents an opportunity for pharmacy teams to reflect on their own practices and consider what changes they could make to improve based on the experiences shared by others.
This article is an example of how ISMP Canada uses information that is submitted to the NIDR and how analyses can be shared and applied in practice. This type of analysis is only possible thanks to pharmacy teams contributing this information to the NIDR anonymously through a commitment to quality and safety. In Alberta, pharmacy teams are moving towards implementing CQI+, ACP’s new continuous quality improvement program. A key component of CQI+ is the submission of practice incident and close call details to the NIDR, which will provide opportunities for learning by their colleagues in Alberta and across Canada. Pharmacy teams must have CQI+ implemented in their pharmacies by February 1, 2026.
