Convenience Should Never Create Patient-Safety Risk Community pharmacies move quickly. A staff member may be entering a prescription, updating insurance information, answering the phone, helping a patient at the counter, and switching between multiple tasks within minutes. Keeping several Kroll sessions or patient profiles open at the same time can seem convenient. But when workload, […]
September 17, 2026: A Global Reminder That Patient Safety Is an Everyday Responsibility Every prescription filled, medication reviewed, near miss identified, and patient counselled is an opportunity to make care safer. On September 17, 2026, World Patient Safety Day brings health professionals, patients, caregivers, organizations, and communities together around one shared goal: reducing avoidable harm […]
Building a Medication Safety Culture in Community Pharmacy Medication safety is often discussed in terms of processes. Double checks. Incident reports. Near misses. Policies. Procedures. Quality improvement meetings. All of these are important. But truly safe pharmacies go one step further. Safety becomes part of the pharmacy’s identity. It influences how team members communicate, how […]
The Assurance and Improvement in Medication Safety (AIMS) program is entering an important transition period. The Transition Year Is Here. Is Your Pharmacy Ready? While the updated AIMS requirements officially take effect on January 1, 2027, Ontario pharmacies are expected to spend 2026 preparing for these changes. This is more than a compliance exercise—it’s an […]
How Does Your Pharmacy Compare? Every pharmacy strives to provide safe, high-quality patient care. But one question has always been difficult to answer: How does our pharmacy’s medication safety performance compare with others across the province? Until now, most pharmacies could only review their own incident reports and internal trends. While this information is valuable, […]
How Alberta Pharmacies Can Maintain an Active CQI+ Program Even When There Are No Reported Incidents For many Alberta pharmacies, one common question comes up after a quiet quarter: “If we had no medication incidents or close calls, do we still need to hold a CQI meeting?” The answer is yes. Under Alberta’s CQI+ framework, […]
Why Ontario Pharmacies Should Start Preparing for AIMS Now January 1, 2027 may seem far away, but successful implementation of Ontario’s Assurance and Improvement in Medication Safety (AIMS) program will require more than selecting a reporting platform. The pharmacies that gain the greatest value from AIMS will not be the ones that simply report incidents. […]
Introduction Community pharmacies operate in fast-paced, high-risk environments every day. Multiple prescriptions, workflow interruptions, staffing pressures, patient questions, insurance issues, and clinical decision-making all happen simultaneously. Despite this complexity, pharmacies are expected to consistently deliver safe and accurate care. This is where high-reliability principles become important. High-reliability organizations are systems that operate in complex environments […]
Introduction As British Columbia implements CIRCL (Continuous Improvement and Reporting Culture Loop), near miss reporting is becoming a central part of pharmacy practice. However, a common question remains:Is it necessary to report every single near miss? The answer is no. Effective reporting is not about volume, it is about identifying meaningful risks, learning from patterns, […]
Introduction Medication safety is a foundational component of high-quality pharmacy practice. The World Health Organization’s Medication Without Harm initiative provides a globally recognized framework to reduce preventable medication-related harm through system-level improvements. As British Columbia advances toward CIRCL (Continuous Improvement and Reporting Culture Loop) implementation, this framework offers a clear structure for how community pharmacies […]
