The Assurance and Improvement in Medication Safety program (AIMS) is the new quality improvement program that is being rolled out into Ontario’s 4300 pharmacies. I have been in consultation on this project since the beginning of the development with both the Ontario College of Pharmacists and Pharmapod, the cloud based software company that is collecting the data and creating the reports that are being used to inform pharmacies of where the incidents are occurring. AIMS is a standardized medication safety and quality assurance program that will support continuous improvement and put in place a mandatory consistent standard for medication safety for all pharmacies in the province. The program enables practitioners to learn from medication incidents, and better understand why they happen and how they can be prevented. Ultimately, through a better understanding of trends associated with recorded incidents including how and why they occur, the College and its health system partners will be able to identify solutions and recommendations to prevent those incidents from recurring and to share these learnings province wide, and beyond.
This is the change I have been working for here and across the country. AIMS is the largest program of its kind in Canada and my hope is that the 5 provinces who are working towards mandating quality programs (British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, PEI and Newfoundland and Labrador) will follow in Ontario’s path.