Read the Safety Bulletins to help you strengthen your medication-use system. Learn about strategies to mitigate harm and to prevent medication errors based on analyses of medication incident reports from Canadian health care providers, facilities, pharmacies, organizations, and consumers.
Key activities within the CMIRPS program include the capture and analysis of medication incidents (including harmful events, no-harm events, near misses, and circumstances that could lead to harmful incidents), as well as dissemination of learning to inform and support actions to improve the safety of medications for Canadians. This bulletin shares findings from analyses of incidents reported to the CMIRPS reporting components over a recent 5-year period.
To combat the spread of COVID-19 through enhanced surface cleaning and disinfection, community pharmacies have been purchasing and storing larger-than-usual quantities of cleaning products, including sanitizers and disinfectants (referred to collectively as "cleaning products" in this bulletin). As a result, some of these products may be purchased in bulk containers and then decanted into other, smaller containers, for ease of handling. As well, some high-strength products must be diluted before use to achieve the desired concentration, which again may involve transfer to separate containers. To accommodate the resulting product volumes, some pharmacies are preparing and/or storing the smaller volumes or diluted products in empty bottles that previously contained distilled water. This bulletin is shared to alert all pharmacy staff to the potentially harmful outcomes of this practice.
As part of an ongoing collaboration with a provincial death investigation service, ISMP Canada received a report describing the death of an individual who ingested a large amount of methadone that had been inappropriately accessed in a community pharmacy. This bulletin highlights the contributing factors identified in the subsequent incident analysis and suggests strategies to improve methadone security in community pharmacies.
This bulletin highlights the prevalence and associated awareness of diversion, calls attention to current work, and emphasizes the need for hospitals to take steps in strengthening their internal systems to monitor, detect and prevent diversion.
The need for improvements to the medication-use process, predicated on an awareness of the risk of IV medication-related harm, is an important step toward system-level changes.
This bulletin focuses on developing robust OAT-related delivery processes to support patients during the pandemic, limiting the exposure of pharmacy staff to COVID-19 by implementing virtual communication, and managing the risks for medication errors.
Some Canadian hospitals will need to begin using an imported double-strength (2% or 20 mg/mL) propofol 100 mL product because there is a shortage of the 1% (10 mg/mL) propofol 50 mL and 100 mL products. To mitigate the risks associated with introducing this novel product into medication-use systems, the following preliminary considerations are provided:
Medication orders (prescriptions) conveyed verbally by telephone or in person are prone to errors. Problems can arise if a medication order is miscommunicated, misheard, or incorrectly transcribed.
In this time of shortages across the country, many companies have taken up the call to manufacture hand sanitizers, so there is greater access to these products. There is a risk that hand sanitizer will be swallowed by accident by an adult or child when it is provided in containers that are usually used for drinks such as soda, water, and alcoholic beverages.
ISMP Canada recommends that medication history interviews and discharge patient education be conducted by telephone, video communication, or email, with the dual goals of reducing the number of non-essential entries into patients' rooms (and the associated risk of viral transmission) and conserving personal protective equipment (PPE) during a pandemic.
Often referred to as emergency medical services (EMS) personnel, paramedics provide a critical link in the care of patients in the community for emergency situations and during transport (until patient transfer to receiving facilities). A multi-incident analysis was conducted to identify themes relating to medication errors in paramedicine practice and to highlight opportunities for improvement.