Safety implications of standardized continuous quality improvement programs in community pharmacy

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Practice
• Medication Safety
• Quality Improvement

Background:

• Standardized continuous quality improvement (CQI) programs are emerging in community pharmacy.
• Their impact on medication safety is not well understood.
• These programs facilitate sharing of quality-related events (QREs) across pharmacies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify specific aspects of medication safety impacted by standardized CQI programs.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of the SafetyNET-Rx program in community pharmacies.

Main Methods:

• A pre- and post-implementation study involving 53 community pharmacies in Nova Scotia.
• Utilized the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) Canada's Medication Safety Self-Assessment (MSSA) survey.
• Employed the Wilcoxon signed-rank test to analyze changes in medication safety.

Main Results:

• Significant improvements were noted in quality processes, risk management, staff competence, and education.
• Enhanced communication of drug orders and related information was observed.
• No statistically significant changes were found in patient education, environmental factors, or device use.

Conclusions:

• Standardized CQI programs, like SafetyNET-Rx, demonstrate positive impacts on key areas of medication safety.
• Improvements in quality processes, risk management, and staff training are particularly noteworthy.
• Further research may explore optimizing patient education and environmental factors within CQI frameworks.