Medication Safety Advocates
Who are Medication Safety Advocates?
Medication Safety Advocates (or simply “Advocates”) are members of the public—patients, caregivers, and community members—who care deeply about safe medication use and want to create meaningful change in their communities.
Advocates have a strong interest in raising awareness of medication overload and tools to prevent medication harm. They may also have a personal experience with:
Taking too many medications (also known as medication overload)
Experiencing harmful side effects from medications, either personally or as a caregiver
The role and impact of Advocates
Advocates play a key role in supporting our mission to promote safe and appropriate medication use for all Canadians. By sharing our evidence-based tools and messages, Advocates help expand our reach—ensuring greater awareness among patients and caregivers in Canadian communities and beyond. Advocates aim to encourage essential conversations about medications between patients, caregivers, and their healthcare professionals—ensuring each medication is the right one, for the right person, at the right time.
If this resonates with you, we invite you to join us as a Medication Safety Advocate!
What Advocates do
Advocates can take part in a variety of activities, including:
Promoting medication safety and sharing medication safety resources (such as brochures, articles, or videos) within their community or networks.
Telling their own story (or a loved one’s) about medication use (if comfortable).
Helping guide the development of our organization’s public resources by providing feedback on existing or future materials and identifying what their community needs most.
Participating in research, to ensure patient and caregiver perspectives are included in every stage of the research process. This may include becoming a patient partner in clinical studies, completing surveys, or sharing perspectives in focus groups.
How to become an Advocate
If you’re interested in becoming a Medication Safety Advocate, please complete this form. Inès Paschos, CADeN’s Public Engagement and Health Promotion Coordinator, will contact you shortly if she hasn’t already.
If you have any questions whatsoever about the role of Medication Safety Advocates, feel free to contact Inès at: ines.paschos@rimuhc.ca.