Patient Safety

TORONTO – Community pharmacies in Ontario will be required to report medication errors to an independent third party, through a phased-in program that starts this fall. The Ontario College of Pharmacists approved the program at its June 12 council meeting. It will apply to all community pharmacies in the province and include mandatory and anonymous “medication incident” reporting to a third party. Read More

OTTAWA – Looking at selected medical tests, treatments and procedures in Canada, a new report finds that up to 30 percent of them are potentially unnecessary. Unnecessary tests and treatments waste health system resources, increase wait times for patients in need and can lead to patient harm. Read More

QUEBEC CITY – In a bid to alleviate the longest ER wait times in the country, Quebec Health Minister Gaétan Barrette (pictured) has announced a $100-million program to reduce ER overcrowding. Read More

MONTREAL – After working in Emergency Departments in both Montreal and Calgary, Dr. Eddy Lang (pictured) believes that techniques used to dramatically reduce wait times in Calgary’s ERs could be used with success in Quebec. Read More

OTTAWA – A new report called “Measuring Patient Harm in Canadian Hospitals” reveals that in 2014–2015, harm was experienced by patients in 1 of every 18 hospital stays, or 138,000 hospitalizations. Of those, 30,000 (or 1 in 5) involved more than 1 form of harm. Read More

TORONTO – The way hospitals measure and report hand hygiene rates does not accurately reflect the true compliance rates of healthcare providers, according to a newly published study. Read More

BALTIMORE, Md. – A recent report stating that medical error is the third leading cause of death in the United States may have raised eyebrows – and the hackles of some doubters – but the issue still remains: if this is the case, what should be done about it? Read More

VANCOUVER – Photodisinfection will soon be a vital part of the Chinese medical system, thanks to Vancouver-based Ondine Biomedical. In use across Canada, Ondine’s technology provides rapid antimicrobial efficacy to prevent and eliminate infections without encouraging the formation and spread of antibiotic resistance. Ondine is a global leader in the development of photodisinfection-based therapies. Read More

TORONTO – Ontario’s healthcare system is falling short on many quality measures, says Dr. Joshua Tepper (pictured), a family physician and the president and chief executive officer of Health Quality Ontario. But instead of simply focusing on the failings, he said, it’s time to create strategies to do better. Read More

BURLINGTON, Ont. – Joseph Brant, a 245-bed community hospital in Burlington, Ont., west of Toronto, represents the first hospital site in Canada to choose FDB MedsTracker MedRec as its fully automated medication reconciliation solution. Read More