Apply today to make the most of your funding benefit and get the technology needed to improve medication safety and better protect your LTC residents.

Download pre-populated application form here.

Background

The Ontario government is providing more than $77 million to help long-term care homes adopt advanced technologies to strengthen medication safety. The goal is to reduce harm resulting from medication incidents by providing LTC homes funding for technology that will enable:

  • Secure and accurate electronic transmission and handling of prescription information.
  • Optimization of medication regimens for long-term care home residents, including the identification ofopportunities for deprescribing (stopping a medication or reducing a medication’s dose) and decision support at the point of prescribing (e.g., electronic clinical decision support systems)
  • Strengthening security of the drug supply (e.g., advanced drug storage solutions, like automated dispensing carts)
  • Accurate administration of medication (e.g., software and devices that help support medication administration)
  • Oversight and monitoring of the medication use process
  • Improved functioning of the medication management system in the long-term care home.

Long-term care homes will have the flexibility to submit a request to the Ministry of Long-Term Care for technology that meets the program’s objectives — including Pharmapod, the industry’s leading medication safety platform.

Am I eligible?

All long-term care homes in Ontario are eligible and will receive funding based on the number of licensed or approved beds in the home, or a base amount of $50,000 (over three years), whichever is greater. The base amount is to ensure smaller homes also benefit from the program.

How do I submit a request for funding?

Start by taking the Medication Management Self-Assessment for Long-Term Care (MSSA-LTC) provided by ISMP Canada. 

ISMP Medication Safety Course

This intent of assessment is to:

  • Evaluate the safety of your medication system
  • Identify vulnerabilities and opportunities for improvement
  • Increase awareness of safe medication system characteristics
  • Monitor progress over time

ISMP Canada requires LTC homes complete this self-assessment for each year of the program in which they wish to participate. 

This assessment will take about 2-3 hours to complete. The deadline to complete and submit the MSSA for funding year 2 is September 30, 2022.

Once technology has been implemented, you are required to report expenditures for the April-to-December and January-to-March periods to The Ministry in their respective calendar years. Your report should detail how funding is, or will be, implemented during that funding year.

How much funding is available for my LTC home?

Funding is based on the number of licenced beds within eligible LTC homes. 

  • Year 1 (2021-2022): $0.72 in per diem or $16,667, whichever is greater
  • Years 2 and 3 (2022-2024): $0.98 in per diem or $16,667, whichever is greater

Most average-sized homes with 130 beds will receive $46,501 in funding in 2022/23.

What qualifies for funding?

Eligible expenses include the cost of acquiring the technology, as well as costs related to implementation and change management support.

Funding is applicable to technology that supports:

  • The secure and accurate electronic transmission and handling of prescription information
  • The optimization of medication regimes for LTC home residents, including the identification of opportunities for deprescribing and decision support at the point of prescribing
  • The strengthening of the security of the drug supply
  • The accurate administration of medication
  • The oversight and monitoring of the medication use process
  • The improved functioning of the medication management system in the LTC home

Funding must be used to acquire a technology that was not in place prior to April 1 of each funding year, unless: 

  • Technology was already in place, but additional functionality is added
  • Funding can be used to cover costs associated with ongoing use and maintenance of automated dispensing cabinets that were installed prior to April 1 of each funding year

How do I submit a request to use Pharmapod’s medication safety technology?

Incident management tools to evaluate and monitor medication safety are not one of the pre approved choices of technology — as a result, you will need approval from the ministry, however the process is straightforward. Simply download and complete this application form (some information is pre-populated) and complete the application template (available through the Ministry) and submit. 

Helpful tips for wording your application:

  1. The standardized digital medication incident management software provides the best oversight and monitoring of the medication use process to reduce harm resulting from medication incidents.
  2. The standardized digital medication incident management software provides a platform to consolidate reporting medication incident and near-miss events, automates analysis of events, tracks risk, provides tools to plan improvements, action improvements and share learnings to evaluate and monitor improved functioning of the medication management system in the long-term care home.
  3. Adding the Pharmapod medication incident management system technology will be an additional improvement to current functionality to achieve the goal of reducing harm resulting from medication incidents
  4. The platform is linked/integrated with pharmacies in Ontario to provide a closed loop system and has exporting features to transfer data and summary reports to home EHRs.

Why Pharmapod?

Pharmapod is a cloud-based, business intelligence (BI) tool for resident medication safety and CQI initiatives. We are the global leader in data measurement for medication safety. Our domain experts in long-term care help you mitigate risk, reduce costs, address recent Public Inquiry recommendations and meet compliance when fixing long-term care with quality initiatives. Download brochure to learn more.

Apply today and get the technology needed to improve medication safety and better protect your LTC residents.

Need assistance applying for funding or want to learn more about Pharmapod’s solution? Complete the form below.