Most Canadians who access health services receive safe care. However, sometimes there are adverse effects from receiving care — unintended harm associated with the delivery of care that can result in a prolonged hospital stay, disability or death.

CIHI provides timely and comparable data and information to guide decisions on patient safety and the provision of safe care. Our work includes a number of initiatives, such as the development and reporting of indicators across the continuum of care and quality and patient safety analyses. Explore information on patient safety, including indicators, data tables, reports and other key resources.

This page lists patient safety reports, stories, infographics and release summaries.

This page lists data tables that provide information about patient safety.

This page lists CIHI’s Patient Safety indicators.

This page lists CIHI’s performance reporting tools that contain patient safety data.

The National System for Incident Reporting (NSIR) is a free, web-based reporting system used by Canadian health care facilities to securely and anonymously share, analyze and discuss medication and IV fluid incidents. NSIR data and analyses inform quality improvement activities at all levels — from ward or unit projects to pan-Canadian initiatives — to foster improvements in health care delivery.

The Canadian Medication Incident Reporting and Prevention System (CMIRPS) is a collaborative pan-Canadian program of Health Canada, the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada (ISMP Canada) and the Healthcare Excellence Canada (HEC).

CIHI has a number of other health services databases that contain quality-of-care information. More information can be found at CIHI’s Data Holdings webpage.

This page contains media releases, bulletins and podcast episodes about patient safety.

Through our Learning Centre, CIHI provides opportunities for health professionals to understand our evolving reporting systems and the application of our standards, data and analytics. We offer many courses and resources for a variety of audiences, including clinicians, assessors, data submitters and analysts, decision-makers, policy planners and researchers.

Courses and resources are available in a variety of formats, including eLearning modules, PDF and page-based documents, live and recorded web conferences, and videos.