Canadian government will soon place an order for 50.4 million doses of the influenza A (H1N1) vaccine.

Canadian public health officials announced recently that the Canadian government will soon place an order for 50.4 million doses of the influenza A (H1N1) vaccine.

The officials, Leona Aglukkaq, Canada’s Minister of Health, and David Butler-Jones, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, said they expect the vaccine will be available in time for the winter influenza season.

“The government of Canada will ensure sufficient H1N1 vaccine is available to immunize every Canadian who needs and wants protection from the H1N1 virus,” Aglukkaq said in a press release. “We are pleased to have worked together with provinces and territories in implementing a coordinated, pan-Canadian response to all elements of the H1N1 outbreak, including decisions around vaccines.”

“We are confident the 50.4 million vaccine doses we plan to purchase will be sufficient to meet the needs of every Canadian likely to need and want protection,” said Butler-Jones.

Aglukkaq and Butler-Jones also said that although the delivery of immunization typically falls under the jurisdiction of Canadian provincial and territorial governments, the federal Canadian government is making an exception in this case and plans to cover 60% of the costs.

17 percent of Canadians subject to medical, medication, or laboratory errors. Commonwealth Study

17 percent of Canadians subject to medical, medication, or laboratory errors. Commonwealth Study

20 percent of Americans and Australians report that they were subject to medical, medication, or laboratory errors.

Evidence of patient safety risks and their impact on patients continues to emerge, both in hospitals and community settings.

HEALTHCARE LAGGING IN CREATING EFFECTIVE SAFETY LEARNING SYSTEMS. Seven Country Study

G. Ross Baker, co-author of The (2004) Canadian Adverse Events Study. Can. Med. Assoc. J., May 2004) calls for "deeper capacity" to deal with ongoing changes in healthcare.

In his editorial to the fourth special issue of the journal Healthcare Quarterly dedicated to patient safety, he quotes a colleague's words: "safety is a dynamic and emerging state that is continually renegotiated as things change. And in healthcare everything changes all the time ... so [we need] to develop a deeper capacity to deal with these issues so we can understand the complexity that we are working in."

May 2009 marked the fifth anniversary of the publication of the Canadian Adverse Events Study. He now writes:
• Evidence of risks and their impact on patients continues to emerge, both in hospitals (where the evidence is considerable) and community settings (where it is not).
• New technologies that improve diagnostic capabilities or offer therapeutic benefits often carry risks.
• Even if these risks are carefully calibrated, this knowledge is not always widely shared.
• Methods and tools alone may be insufficient to create an environment supporting safer care.
• Hand hygiene is "widely recognized as a critical practice for reducing healthcare-associated infections, many audits find only modest levels of acceptable practice."

Many experts, he writes, believe that healthcare has lagged in creating the types of effective safety learning systems seen in other high-risk industries.

Full issue available here:
http://www.longwoods.com/home.php?cat=604.

Self reported errors discussed here:
http://www.longwoods.com/product.php?productid=20967&cat=604&page=1

To contact the Editor please write G. Ross Baker (ross.baker@utoronto.ca).

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