Website overview for public users

Website overview for public users

Drug Shortages Canada is the website for reporting drug shortages and discontinuations in Canada. Drug sellers must report when they are not able to meet demand for a product or when they stop selling a product. This page provides a brief overview of how to use the site.

You can find a list of the most recently updated shortage or discontinuation reports on the Drug Shortages Canada home page. To view additional report information, click on the underlined product or company name (hyperlink). You can select individual reports from the product or company pages or directly from the home page by selecting the report ID in the View Report columns.

How to search

There are two ways to search for information, the Search Reports page and the Search Products page.

The Search Reports page allows you to search all posted shortage or discontinuation reports. The keyword search can be performed using partial or full text; some search examples include brand name, company name, ingredient, ATC code or ATC description. A blank keyword search will return all reports. You can also search by date range (date created or date updated), report type and report status. You can sort search results by using the sort arrows in the header of the columns. To view additional information, click on the underlined product, company name or report ID (hyperlink). 

The “Export results” button on the search reports page will create individual CSV files for shortage reports and discontinuation reports containing data from the search results. Please note that the two CSV files will be downloaded in a single .zip file. Users would then need to open the .zip file to access the CSV files.

The Search Products page allows you to search for specific products and whether there has been a shortage or discontinuation report for it. The keyword search can be performed using partial or full text and will search the fields for brand name, company name, and DIN; the ingredient search can include single or multiple ingredients; the ATC code and ATC description search fields can also be used. A blank keyword search will return all products. You can sort search results by using the sort arrows in the header of the columns. To view additional information, click on the underlined product or company name (hyperlink).

Other Important Pages

The product page will show all reports that have been posted, provide additional product information and link to the ingredient page. The company page will show all reports for products from the company that have been posted. You can select reports for viewing from the product or company pages.

The Summary Report page shows total number of reports, with a break down of how many are at each status, as well as details on number of reports per company. Each company’s results are also presented on their company page. 

The drug report history page is now available. In order to access this page, click on one of the "Compare" hyperlinks at the bottom of the page when viewing a report. The drug report history table will compare the different versions of a report, highlighting any changes made between each version.

You can find additional information on drug shortages and discontinuations including guidance documents and tutorials on the About & Resources page.

How to set up notifications

To receive email notifications for new or updated shortage or discontinuation reports you will need to set up a user account. For a public account, click on “Create an account” at the top of the page. For a company account, please see how to create an account on the About & Resources page. If you want to receive email messages from the website for reports about a specific product or company, click “Receive email notifications”. If you want to receive a daily message for all created and updated reports, click “Receive all notifications”.

To receive notifications for a specific product: search by the product name; click on the product name to go to the product page; and; click “Follow”. Another way to receive notifications for a specific product is by navigating to the “Profile” page and entering 3-5 digits of an ATC code in the box provided on the “Your drug notifications” page of the website; and click “Follow”.

To receive notifications for a specific company: search by the company name; click on the company name to go to the company page; and; click “Follow”.

To receive notifications for a specific ingredient: search by the ingredient name; click on any product name to go to the product page; click on the ingredient to go to the ingredient page; and; click “Follow”.

To proactively follow products or companies that have not submitted a shortage or discontinuation report, search for the product or company in the Search Products page, click on the product or company and click “follow”.

You can view and edit your notification list from your profile page.