SafetyNET-Rx is a quality improvement program designed to help pharmacies reduce and learn from medication errors and near misses, collectively known as Quality Related Events (QRE). More specifically, the objective of SafetyNET-Rx is to enhance patient safety through a community pharmacy-based quality management program. The program encourages pharmacies to apply a set of standardized business processes, quality management practices, and integrated information technologies (IT) to identify, report, analyze and learn from QREs.

Key elements of SafetyNET-Rx include a CQI cycle tailored to community pharmacies, online reporting of QREs to a national database, annual completion of a medication safety self-assessment questionnaire, quarterly staff meetings in the pharmacy to discuss reported QREs and plan workflow and dispensing changes; and access to store-level, provincial, and national aggregate data on QREs for analysis of root causes. SafetyNET-Rx is the only program of its kind in Canada and is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation (NSHRF), and Canada Foundation for Pharmacy, along with significant in-kind contributions from the Nova Scotia College of Pharmacists and Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada.