Hospitals report on medication safety in Canada.

Measurement of safety can be difficult. Given that incident reporting systems rely primarily on voluntary reporting and some types of medication incidents may occur rarely, lack of reports about a particular type of incident cannot be interpreted as evidence that the underlying causes are resolved. Proxy measurements, such as the level of implementation of evidence-based practices known to reduce the risk of a particular incident, may provide an indication of progress toward safer systems. This article includes an overview of some proxy measurements influencing medication use systems in patient care areas, including critical care, as reported in the biennial Hospital Pharmacy in Canada survey.

National collaborative: Top five drugs reported as causing harm through medication error in pediatrics.

The Canadian Association of Paediatric Health Centres (CAPHC) and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada (ISMP Canada) are working collaboratively to enhance the safety of pediatric medication use. Eleven CAPHC member organizations submitted data on more than 4,000 medication incidents to ISMP Canada for the period October 2005 to June 2008, 305 of which were reported as resulting in harm. From this, the top five drugs causing harm through medication error and contributing factors to the incidents were identified. In this article, we intend to inform critical care practitioners of the medication incident analyses and the collaborative pediatric patient safety initiatives underway.