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Medication Safety Self-Assessment for Practicing Paramedics Instructions

Instructions for Completing the MSSA-Paramedics

1. Read each assessment statement. For each one, choose the option that best describes how often you use or follow the practice in your work or your understanding of how often the practice is used in your environment.

Assessment statements refer to medications prescribed, procured, dispensed, and administered to all patients in the emergency response or community setting.

For self-assessment statements with more than one part, choose the lowest response that is true for all the parts. For example, if there are three parts to the statement and one of them is used less than 25% of the time while the other two are used 50-75% of the time, you would choose Rarely.

Possible responses:

  1. N Not Implemented/ Not Sure – Select “Not Implemented/ Not Sure” for practices or processes that are not in use (e.g., medication system technologies such as bar coding may not be available to you) or if you do not know whether the practice or process is in use.
  2. R Rarely – Select “Rarely” for practices that are used less than 25% of the time.
  3. S Sometimes – Select “Sometimes” for practices that are used 25-50% of the time.
  4. O Often - Select “Often” for practices that are used 50-75% of the time.
  5. A Always - Select “Always” for practices that are used more than 75% of the time.
  6. NA Not Applicable is offered as an option for selected statements only, with defined criteria.

The assessment items are scored as follows:
N - Not Implemented = 0
R - Rarely = 1
S - Sometimes = 2
O - Often = 3
A - Always = 4
NA - Not Applicable = 0

2. Finalize your assessment.

At the end of each section, the web-based survey tool will prompt you to save your responses. After you save your work, you can move to the next section, or logout and return to the assessment at a later time.

Once all statements are answered in all sections, the survey tool will prompt you to “Check MSSA for errors.” Once you are satisfied with your responses, you may click the “Submit” button.

Important note: you cannot edit your responses once you click “Submit.”

Once you click “Submit”, the survey tool immediately sends your responses to a secure database maintained solely by ISMP Canada. No information stays on the web-based survey tool after you submit your responses. ISMP Canada assures your confidentiality.

3. Print/view your completed assessment.

Once you submit your responses, you will have access to a report summarizing your results.

4. Compare your results to others.

As soon as you submit your responses*, you will be able to compare your results with all the other results in the dataset. Data filters allow you to compare your results to those of paramedics with similar practices.

*Important note: To ensure individual respondents cannot be identified, there must be at least 3 completed surveys in the database to generate graphs.

5. Using aggregate data

Comparing your own results to the overall results in the dataset may help you to identify opportunities for professional development, as well as show you where your own medication safety practices are aligned with your peers.

6. Completing the MSSA-Paramedics as part of an organizational project

The MSSA-Paramedics will most often be completed as part of a quality improvement initiative undertaken by a paramedic organization. Your results are stored anonymously in the dataset and your organization will not be able to identify the responses of any individual paramedic.