10 Topics
5 Days
Programme Overview
Training Description
To build a comprehensive and effective safety culture, training in patient safety and quality care should be multi-professional. Recommended participants include:
1. Clinical Staff: Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, allied health professionals (physiotherapists, occupational therapists), and technicians actively involved in direct patient care.
2. Healthcare Leadership & Management: Hospital administrators, clinical directors, nursing supervisors, and department heads responsible for operational workflows and policy implementation.
3. Quality & Safety Specialists: Quality improvement officers, risk managers, and patient safety coordinators.
4. Support & Administrative Staff: Frontline receptionists, medical records personnel, and transport staff who play vital roles in patient transitions and handoffs.
5. Students & Trainees: Medical, nursing, and healthcare administration students to embed safety principles early in their professional development.
Session Objectives
- Identify vulnerabilities and hidden risks within everyday workflows.
- Utilize structured tools to communicate effectively, prevent errors, and report incidents constructively.
- Actively contribute to a Just Culture that prioritizes transparency, continuous learning, and psychological safety.
- Apply proven quality improvement frameworks to measure outcomes and drive sustainable, positive change for patients and staff alike.
About the Course
Welcome to the foundational training on Patient Safety and Quality Care.
Healthcare delivery is one of the most complex, high-stakes environments in modern society. While medical advancements save millions of lives daily, the inherent complexity of healthcare systems also exposes patients to unintended risks. Globally, adverse events—injuries resulting from medical management rather than the underlying disease—represent one of the leading causes of death and disability.
Quality care and patient safety are inextricably linked. As famously defined by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), healthcare quality is "the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge." Safe care is the absolute bedrock of quality; you cannot have a high-quality health system if patients are routinely harmed by the care meant to heal them.
Curriculum & Topics
10 Topics | 5 Days
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Subtopic 1.1:
Core definitions (safety, error, adverse event, near miss, quality of care).
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Subtopic 1.2:
The global and local burden of unsafe care.
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Subtopic 1.3:
Overview of the dimensions of quality (Safe, Effective, Patient-Centered, Timely, Efficient, Equitable).
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Subtopic 2.1:
Moving from a blame culture to a just culture.
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Subtopic 2.2:
Psychological safety: encouraging open reporting of errors and near misses.
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Subtopic 2.3:
Leadership’s role in prioritizing and modeling safety behaviors.
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Subtopic 3.1:
Understanding human capabilities and limitations in high-stress environments.
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Subtopic 3.2:
Environmental design, ergonomics, and workflow optimization to minimize error.
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Subtopic 3.3:
The "Swiss Cheese Model" of accident causation (how multiple system layers prevent or allow failures).
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Subtopic 4.1:
Incident reporting systems.
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Subtopic 4.2:
Open disclosure: how to communicate transparently with patients and families after an adverse event.
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Subtopic 4.3:
Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and systems-based investigations.
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Subtopic 5.1:
Common causes of medication errors (prescribing, transcribing, dispensing, administration).
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Subtopic 5.2:
High-alert medications and Look-Alike, Sound-Alike (LASA) drugs.
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Subtopic 5.3:
Strategies for safe medication reconciliation and verification.
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Subtopic 6.1:
Standard precautions, hand hygiene, and aseptic techniques.
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Subtopic 6.2:
Prevention bundles for high-risk complications (e.g., Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections [CAUTI], Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infections [CLABSI], surgical site infections).
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Subtopic 7.1:
Correct patient, correct site, and correct procedure verification (The Surgical Safety Checklist / Time-Outs).
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Subtopic 7.2:
Fall prevention and management of immobility risks.
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Subtopic 7.3:
Pressure injury prevention.
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Subtopic 8.1:
Interprofessional communication barriers and dynamics.
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Subtopic 8.2:
Standardized communication tools (e.g., SBAR: Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation).
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Subtopic 8.3:
Structured briefings, debriefings, and handoff (transitions of care) protocols.
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Subtopic 9.1:
Shifting toward person- and family-centered care.
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Subtopic 9.2:
Empowering patients to act as active partners in their own safety.
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Subtopic 9.3:
Managing health literacy to ensure informed consent and adherence.
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Subtopic 10.1:
The Model for Improvement (Plan-Do-Study-Act / PDSA cycles).
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Subtopic 10.2:
Core QI analytical tools
