Institute for Safe Medication Practices

What it reported doing in 2024

Technical assistance programs and education: education: ismp considers education to be a core component of its mission and offers a variety of valuable educational resources for healthcare practitioners and consumers, including frequent webinars, continuing education sessions at some of the nation's largest professional meetings, workshops, lectures, videos, and patient brochures. A wide range of free tools for healthcare practitioners, such as lists of high-alert drugs and potentially dangerous abbreviations, are available on www.ismp.org. In addition, ismp hosts medication safety fellowships.consults: each year, ismp provides confidential consulting services to healthcare facilities across the country in a wide range of practice settings (e.g., hospitals/health-systems, community and specialty pharmacies, ambulatory clinics, infusion centers, etc.) to help improve medication safety. Onsite proactive risk assessments in these practice settings by a multidisciplinary team of practitioners result in safe practice recommendations and a customized roadmap to medication error prevention. Ongoing guidance in implementation and follow-up support services are also provided as needed. Unlike other consultants, ismp constantly updates its evidence-based prevention strategies with real-time information gained from ongoing analysis of thousands of reports submitted to its national voluntary error reporting programs.error reporting and analysis: the voluntary ismp national medication errors reporting program (ismp merp) was started in order to learn about errors happening across the nation, understand root causes, and share "lessons learned" with the healthcare community. The program was expanded to include a national vaccine errors reporting program (ismp verp) and the first consumer error reporting program through ismp's consumer website (www.consumermedsafety.org). Each year, the programs receive a few thousand reports from healthcare practitioners and consumers. That information is used to bring about large-scale changes in medication safety through published guidelines, recommendations and best practices. In addition, based on the information submitted to the programs, national alert network (nan) alerts are issued as needed to warn providers of risk for errors that have caused or may cause serious harm or death. Research and best practices development: in addition to disseminating information on safe medication use gained through its reporting programs and other sources, ismp conducts original research to help provide evidence-based solutions and develops guidance and prevention strategies to prevent errors. Ismp has conducted national medication safety self-assessments for acute care hospitals in 2000, 2004, and 2011, a self-assessment for high-alert medications in 2018 and a self-assessment for perioperative medication safety in 2021. Topics that other ismp self-assessments have addressed include oncology, community/ambulatory pharmacy, and antithrombotic therapy. Ismp also develop best practices and most recently issued the 2024-2025 targeted medication safety best practices for hospitals and 2023-2024 targeted medication safety best practices for community pharmacy to identify, inspire, and mobilize national action on recurring safety problems.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 75.3%; rating input score 75
• Program expense ratio: 46.7%; rating input score 47
• Fundraising efficiency: $12.55 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 45; 45th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 2 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 33
  • Compensation committee: Missing
  • Independent consultant: Missing
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Pass
  • Written employment contract: Missing
  • Compensation survey or study: Missing
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: Limited
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 25%; rating input score 25; 6th percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 7 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 78
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Fail
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

• Operating margin: -61.1%; rating input score 2; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.47; rating input score 16; 16th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 1.79; rating input score 2; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 45.8%; rating input score 2; 2nd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: -3.7% per year; rating input score 0; 6th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: -2.5% per year; rating input score 0; 6th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: -7.1% per year; rating input score 0; 3rd percentile among comparable filings