CFP Announces 2010 Innovation Fund Grant Winner

Toronto, ON – The Canadian Foundation for Pharmacy is delighted to announce this year’s recipient of its Innovation Fund Grant to advance the profession of pharmacy through optimizing patient care.

Just over $48,000 has been awarded to Dr. Neil MacKinnon (College of Pharmacy, Dalhousie University) and his interdisciplinary research team.

In line with the 2010 grant theme to expand the scope of pharmacy practice, Dr. MacKinnon’s application entitled “SafetyNET-Rx: Development and Testing of Evaluation Guides” was selected from 12 solid submissions to the Foundation. Broadly speaking, SafetyNET-Rx is a standardized community pharmacy quality improvement program whereby pharmacists and pharmacy technicians first learn to identify and categorize specific medication errors and “near misses” (errors intercepted before a patient receives a prescription), then anonymously submit each error to a national database for subsequent analysis so pharmacy may implement practice changes to help prevent such errors from occurring again.

Dr. MacKinnon’s team will use the CFP grant to build upon two existing elements of their SafetyNet-Rx initiative.

Specifically, researchers will create “how to” manuals and identify learning strategies for community pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. Also to be developed are standardized tools for provincial regulatory bodies to assess, monitor and help pharmacies improve both quality and safety. Finally, these tools will undergo formal evaluations to encourage their application in practice.

Particularly attractive is the development of this program in Nova Scotia–the first province to recently require a continuous documented quality assurance program. As such, SafetyNET-Rx is being built upon grass roots, real life situations, an important factor in one of the project’s main objectives, which is to disseminate tools and findings for use by pharmacies and regulatory bodies in other provinces.

“We are so pleased to be able to help advance the development and transmission of this innovative work across Canada,” says CFP Board Member, and Awards Committee Chair, Dr. Steven Semelman. “It is a perfect fit with CFP’s current emphasis to support the inclusion of cognitive services into pharmacy reimbursement models.

For 65 years the Foundation has fulfilled its mandate to “promote the advancement of pharmacy.” Since 2003, it has focused on innovations that support the evolving role of pharmacists for the benefit of the public they serve, as well as research efforts which document pharmacy’s value in the Canadian healthcare system.

For more information, contact:
Dayle Acorn, Executive Director
5809 Fieldon Road
Mississauga, ON, L5M 5K1
Canadian Foundation for Pharmacy 1-905-997-3238
dacorn@cfpnet.ca