Mission Impossible: Can Reporting Medication Errors and Learning from Data be Easier?

It’s estimated that patient safety incidents occur every minute and 18 seconds in Canada (CPSI) - and many of these incidents involve medication mix-ups. Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are a leading cause of injury and avoidable harm in healthcare systems around the world. In Canada, medical errors account for 28,000 deaths yearly and the most frequent errors involve medication mix-ups. 

Today, pharmacists and healthcare professionals are under increased pressure. The pandemic has exhausted the workforce and created critical staff shortages, while lockdowns and delays have prompted an increase in take-home cancer drugs (THCD), creating unease among many pharmacists. Approximately 90 percent of publicly funded THCD in Ontario are now dispensed from community pharmacies, yet less than 20 percent of pharmacists are comfortable with this model. 

How can pharmacists and healthcare professionals adapt to this ‘new normal’ and prevent medication incidents while improving patient safety? 

Join Carla Beaton, BSc Phm, VP Quality Improvements & Innovations at Pharmapod, for an informative discussion where we’ll highlight critical data around medication incidents, explain the surprising advantages of error reporting, and cover trends and technologies that can improve medication safety without adding administrative burden. 

You’ll learn:

• Common causes of medication errors
• Advantages of increasing recording of incidents and near-miss events 
• Cost of medication errors
• Easy ways to action quality improvement, and more

The webinar will be followed by a Q&A session. If you are unavailable to attend live, register to receive a pre-recorded webinar link.

Speakers:

Carla Beaton, 
BSc Phm,
VP Quality Improvements & Innovations at Pharmapod

Lisa Rambout,
RPh, PhDHQ Student Queen’s University, Pharmacy Practice Coordinator for Oncology at The Ottawa Hospital