The AIMS mandate
From that date every accredited Ontario pharmacy must run a medication incident reporting platform that meets the College’s published criteria and contributes to ISMP Canada’s National Incident Data Repository. The College’s long-standing single-platform contract has ended, 2026 is the transition year, and each pharmacy now chooses and signs up with its own platform. This page explains exactly what is required.
What actually changes
Nothing about the deadline is ambiguous. These are the four hard changes, and the state of play today for each.
Recording medication incidents and near misses on a platform is no longer a choice of format. Every accredited pharmacy must be signed up with one.
Through 2026, any format is still acceptable — including the College’s own printable paper form.
It must meet the College’s published criteria and contribute anonymised incident data to ISMP Canada’s National Incident Data Repository.
The College receives aggregate NIDR data only — never pharmacy-specific or identifiable information.
Registered staff at their primary place of practice must each have their own login. This is what makes the record attributable.
The requirement covers staff at their primary place of practice — not relief or occasional staff.
A Safety Self-Assessment at least every two years, and Continuous Quality Improvement meetings at least quarterly.
These are the only hard timings in the standard, alongside the daily NIDR upload. Recording an incident is required to be timely — no fixed number of hours is specified.
The OCP Platform Criteria
The College publishes the criteria a platform must meet. It does not sell one, and it does not approve or endorse one. Any platform — including a pharmacy’s own proprietary system — is permitted so long as it satisfies the following.
The platform must support documentation and analysis of all medication incidents AND near misses, and documentation of the resulting action plans.
Incident data must be reported anonymously to the National Incident Data Repository, uploaded daily.
OCP receives aggregate NIDR data. No pharmacy-specific or identifiable information reaches the College through this channel.
Mandatory regardless of which platform is used. The Designated Manager signs it after selecting a platform.
The pharmacy must have ACCESS to a validated Safety Self-Assessment tool — ISMP Canada’s MSSA or Think Research’s PSSA. If the platform does not include one, the pharmacy subscribes separately.
Responsibility for the privacy and security of the data held in the platform rests with the pharmacy, not the College.
Source: Ontario College of Pharmacists, AIMS Platform Criteria — last updated June 11, 2026.
The record itself
These are the fields the criteria require for every medication incident. A near miss collects the same set with one exception — degree of harm — because a near miss never reached the patient. Note that several mandatory fields are captured and retained at the pharmacy but are never submitted to the NIDR.
| # | Field | Sent to NIDR | Near miss |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Date incident occurred | Submitted | Required |
| 2 | Time incident occurred | Local only | Required |
| 3 | Patient date of birthSubmitted as an age range, not a date. | Submitted | Required |
| 4 | Patient gender | Submitted | Required |
| 5 | Type of incident | Submitted | Required |
| 6 | Incident discovered by | Submitted | Required |
| 7 | Medication prescribed by | Local only | Required |
| 8 | Medication system stages involved | Submitted | Required |
| 9 | Medication(s) involvedName and DIN. | Submitted | Required |
| 10 | Route of administration | Local only | Required |
| 11 | Associated FactorsCentral fill, compliance packaging, compounded medication, injection by pharmacy professional, transition of care, or none. | Local only | Required |
| 12 | Degree of harmIncidents only. A near miss never reached the patient, so it has no degree of harm. | Submitted | Not collected |
| 13 | Incident descriptionFree text. | Local only | Required |
| 14 | Contributing factors | Local only | Required |
| 15 | Actions taken at the pharmacy level | Local only | Required |
A near miss collects 14 of the 15fields. The exception is degree of harm — by definition, a near miss never reached the patient, so there is no harm to grade. “Local only” fields are still mandatory to record; they are simply retained at the pharmacy rather than submitted to the repository.
The trust question
This is the question every pharmacist asks first, and it deserves a straight answer. What is submitted to the NIDR is anonymous and narrow. The rest — including everything a staff member would worry about — is captured for the pharmacy’s own analysis and never leaves the building.
Leaves the pharmacy
Uploaded daily. ISMP Canada aggregates it nationally; the College sees aggregate data only.
Stays in the building
Required by the standard, held by the pharmacy for its own analysis and CQI. Not sent to the NIDR, and not sent to the College.
The submission to the NIDR is anonymous. The College receives aggregate data only — never pharmacy-specific or identifiable information. Responsibility for the privacy and security of the data held inside the platform rests with the pharmacy.
Your move
If you own or manage an accredited Ontario pharmacy, this is the whole job. It is short.
Do NOT send incidents to the College. That is not, and will not be, how this works.
Timings in the standard: NIDR upload daily, CQI meetings at least quarterly, Safety Self-Assessment at least every 2 years. Recording an incident is required to be timely; the standard sets no fixed number of hours.
Choosing a platform
The College does not approve or endorse any platform. Its criteria document names existing providers as a non-exhaustive list, expressly permits a pharmacy’s own proprietary system, and openly invites new providers to request a demonstration at AIMS@ocpinfo.com. The market is genuinely open — which is the point of the transition year.
Named in the criteria as existing providers. The list is explicitly non-exhaustive, and proprietary systems are permitted.
The same NIDR rails already serve eight other provinces — Alberta (CQI+), British Columbia (CIRCL), Manitoba (Safety IQ), New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan (COMPASS), Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador (MedSTEP). A platform built to these criteria is not an Ontario-only investment.
Where AgileRx fits
AgileRx’s Incident Reporting module is built directly to the OCP Platform Criteria. Here is what that means in practice, and what it does not mean yet.
Every mandatory field from the criteria, with near misses collecting the same set minus degree of harm — because a near miss never reached the patient.
A live check on free-text fields as the pharmacist types, with a server-side backstop that refuses to save. Advice you can ignore is not a control.
Staff can see, on screen, which fields leave the building and which never do. A staff member who does not trust the tool will not report the incident — so we show them.
Quarterly CQI meetings and the two-year Safety Self-Assessment are scheduled and tracked, not left to memory.
The difference
A standalone incident platform is pure overhead. It is a line item you pay for because the College requires it, and it never earns the pharmacy a dollar back. AgileRx arrives attached to the modules that do — MedsCheck, minor ailments, vaccinations and injections. The compliance you are legally required to buy ships alongside the clinical services that pay for it.
See the Incident Reporting moduleA working walkthrough — all 15 fields, the near-miss path, the PHI guard, and the partition screen that shows staff exactly what leaves the building. Bring your Designated Manager.
Book a demoThis page is a plain-language summary published by a vendor. It is not legal advice and it does not replace the College’s own documents. Where this page and the College disagree, the College is right — read the criteria and the standard directly, and confirm your obligations with OCP.