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NEW NAPRA DOCUMENT PUBLISHED: Model Standards for Continuous Quality Improvement and Medication Incident Reporting

Model Standards for Continuous Quality Improvement and Medication Incident Reporting

The National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities (NAPRA) is pleased to report the publication of new model standards entitled “Model Standards of Practice for Continuous Quality Improvement and Medication Incident Reporting by Pharmacy Professionals”. This document was developed by NAPRA as a supplement to the model standards of practice for Canadian pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to provide more information in the area of continuous quality improvement and medication incident reporting. As with all NAPRA documents, these supplemental standards of practice serve as a model, which can be adopted or adapted for implementation as seen fit by the pharmacy regulatory authority (PRA) in each province or territory, based on the needs in that jurisdiction. 

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 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. These national model standards were developed to help facilitate and harmonize continuous quality improvement and medication incident reporting across Canada.

Once these standards are implemented by the PRA in a particular province or territory, pharmacy professionals in that jurisdiction will be expected to follow them in the development of their pharmacy’s continuous quality improvement processes and in the event of a medication incident or near miss. The end goal is to promote continuous quality improvement processes that contribute to patient safety and enhance patient trust in the safety of pharmacy practice.  

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