1999 The Institute of Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) Canada was established as a non-profit agency dedicated to gathering and analysis of information relating to medication incidents and the development of recommendations for the enhancement of patient safety.
2003 Funding for the Canadian Medication Incident Reporting and Prevention System (CMIRPS) was secured, through agreements involving Health Canada, the Canadian Institute of Health Information and ISMP Canada.
2000 to 2004 ISMP Canada begins collecting voluntary reporting from practitioners, receiving more than 5,000 incident reports during this period.
2008 Pilot project established involving 13 community pharmacies in Nova Scotia under the name of SafertyNET-Rx. Between August 2008 to January 2010, 1,544 incidents were voluntarily reported by the participating pharmacies.
2010 Nova Scotia becomes the first Canadian province to require community pharmacies to report prescription errors through the Canadian Pharmacy Incident Reporting (CPhIR) database. Since 2010, more than 276,300 reports have been submitted to the NIDR.
2011 The CMIRPS website was officially launched.
2013 Saskatchewan launches a pilot program called Community Pharmacy Professionals Advancing Safety in Saskatchewan (COMPASS) to report medication incidents to CPhIR, collecting 575 medication incidents voluntarily reported from September 2013 to August 2014.
2015 New Brunswick conducts a pilot study involving 82 pharmacies using CPhIR as part of a quality management program to support safe practices.
2016 Ontario College of Pharmacists establishes Medication Safety Task Force to review options for a medication incident reporting program for the province.
2017 Ontario approves recommendation to develop and implement a mandatory reporting program for all pharmacies. Pharmapod Ltd. was selected to develop and implement a recording platform for pharmacies.
2017 Manitoba begins pilot of its Safety IQ continuous quality improvement program in September with 20 community pharmacies.
2017 Saskatchewan adopts COMPASS as a mandatory requirement for all community pharmacies in December 2017.
2018 Ontario implements its reporting program, named the Assurance and Improvement in Medication Safety (AIMS) Program, initially involving 100 community pharmacies, with province-wide implementation towards the end of 2018.
2018 British Columbia’s College of Pharmacists begins exploring the implementation of mandatory medication error reporting.
2018 New Brunswick College of Pharmacists issues practice directive to implement its Mandatory Medication Incident Reporting (MMIR) program.
2021 The National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities (NAPRA) publishes its Model Standards of Practice for Continuous Quality Improvement and Medication Incident Reporting by Pharmacy Professionals document.
2021 Manitoba rolls out Safety IQ program to all community pharmacies on June 1, 2021.
2023 Prince Edward Island College of Pharmacy requires all community pharmacies to report medication incidents by Jan. 31, 2023.
2024 Newfoundland and Labrador implements MedSTEP NL program, requiring all community pharmacies to report medication incidents to NIDR as of July 1, 2024.
2026 Alberta requires all pharmacy teams to have its continuous quality improvement program (CQI+) in place by Feb. 1, 2026.
2026 British Columbia requires all pharmacies to participate in its Continuous Improvement, Reporting, Collaborating and Learning (CIRCL) medication incident reporting program by June 1, 2026.
2027 Ontario requires community pharmacies to contribute to NIDR by Jan. 1, 2027. Pharmacies authorized to select their own reporting platform in June 2025.