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New Standards and Professional Practice Policy for Patient Identification Coming Soon
Proper patient identification is vital to providing safe pharmacy services. Establishing clear patient identification requirements for when there is not face to face interaction with patients adds additional safeguards to ensure drugs are sent to the patients they are intended for.
While patient identification requirements already exist for scenarios in which there is face-to-face interaction between a patient and a registrant, there are currently no requirements for patient identification in scenarios where a registrant may not have face to face interaction with their patients. Instances where there is no face-to-face interaction between patients and pharmacy professionals occur most frequently while providing care for hospital in-patients and within residential care settings.
It is important to address this gap in legislation to ensure public safety is protected through patient identification. As a result, the College developed new standards and a professional practice policy for patient identification to address situations where there is no face-to-face interaction in hospital and residential care settings.
The policy outlines acceptable ways of identifying patients based on Accreditation Canada’s Required Organizational Practices Handbook 2016. Amendments to the Health Professions Act (HPA) – Bylaws, Schedule F, Part 2 and Part 3 and Professional Practice Policy-75: Patient Identification (PPP-75) were approved by the College Board at the November 2016 Board meeting.
The amended Bylaws have been filed with the Minister of Health and will come into effect on January 20, 2017. PPP-75 will also come into force at this time.
The amendments and new professional practice policy also support the next phase of the College’s Practice Review Program which focuses on hospital practice. Clear requirements for patient identification within hospital practice for both those who have face-to-face contact with patients, and those who may not, were needed to effectively complete a practice review. The implementation of PRP: Hospital Practice was also approved at the November 2016 Board meeting.
New Standards for Patient Identification
Health Professions Act (HPA) – Bylaws, Schedule F, PART 2 – Hospital Pharmacy Standards of Practice Section 3.2 Unless dispensing to staff, outpatients or the general public under section 4(5), all registrants must use at least two person-specific identifiers to confirm the identity of a patient before providing any pharmacy service to the patient Section 6.2 All registrants must use at least two person-specific identifiers to confirm the identity of a resident before providing any pharmacy service to the resident. |
New Professional Practice Policy-75: Patient Identification
The Board also approved the implementation of Professional Practice Policy-75 – Patient Identification (PPP-75) which outlines acceptable ways of identifying patients based on Accreditation Canada’s Required Organizational Practices Handbook 2016. Policy:
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- Professional Practice Policies