Adapting the US Institute for Safe Medication Practices' Medication Safety Self Assessment tool for community pharmacies in Finland

Abstract

To adapt a US Institute for Safe Medication Practices' Medication Safety Self Assessment (MSSA) tool to, and test its usefulness in, Finnish community pharmacies. A three-round Delphi survey was used to adapt self-assessment characteristics of the US MSSA tool to Finnish requirements, and to obtain a consensus on the feasibility and significance of these characteristics in assessing the safety of medication practices in community pharmacies. The Delphi modified self-assessment tool was piloted in 18 community pharmacies in order to refine the tool, using a questionnaire containing structured and open-ended questions. A total of 211 self-assessment characteristics were accepted to the self-assessment tool for pilot use by expert panellists in the Delphi rounds. Most pilot users considered the tool as useful in: identifying medication safety targets for development; medication safety assessment; and identifying the strengths of medication safety. The substance of the self-assessment tool was considered as comprehensive and essential for medication safety. Most criticism was regarding: the multiplicity of self-assessment characteristics; interpretation of some characteristics; and that all the characteristics were not yet available. After the modification, according to the pilot users' comments, the final Finnish tool consisted of 230 medication safety characteristics. The study indicated the feasibility of adapting a US medication safety self-assessment tool for use in community pharmacy practice in Finland. More efforts should be made to familiarise Finnish community pharmacists with the self-assessment tool and its benefits, and get them to use the tool as part of their long-term quality improvement.