Ayman O.S. El-Kadi, PhD Professor and Dean

College of Pharmacy, Qatar University

WHO Patient Safety Curriculum

Background

• Patient Safety is the reduction of risk of unnecessary harm associated with health care to an acceptable minimum

• As future clinicians students need to learn about patient safety

• The curriculum can be integrated with clinical care. • Students need to learn to practice safe health care

Topic 1: What is patient safety?

• Understand the discipline of patient safety and its role in minimizing the incidence and impact of adverse events, and maximizing recovery from them

• Harm caused by health-care errors and system failures

• Lessons about error and system failure from other industries

Topic 2: What is human factors and why is it important to patient safety?

• Understand human factors and its relationship to patient safety

• Know the meaning of the term human factors • Understand the relationship between human

factors and patient safety

Topic 3: Understanding systems and the impact of complexity on patient care

• Understand how systems thinking can improve health care and minimize patient adverse events

• Explain the terms system and complex system as they relate to health care

• Explain why a systems approach to patient safety is superior to the traditional approach

Topic 4: Being an effective team player

• Understand the importance of teamwork in health care

• Know how to be an effective team player

• Recognize you will be a team member as a health professional student

Topic 5: Understanding and learning from errors

• Understand the nature of error and how health care providers can learn from errors to improve patient safety

Topic 6: Understanding and managing clinical risk

• Identify the risk • Assess the frequency and severity of the risk • Reduce or eliminate the risk • Cost the risk

Topic 7: Introduction to quality improvement methods

• The science of improvement • Change concepts • Improvement principles • Role of measurement in

improvement

Topic 8: Engaging with patients and carers

• Understand the ways in which patients and carers can be involved as partners in health care, both in preventing harm and learning from an adverse event

• Basic communication techniques • Informed consent procedures • The basics of open disclosure

Topic 9: Minimizing infection through improved infection control

• The extent of the problem • The main causes and types of health care-

associated infection (HCAI) • The modes of infection transmission in health-care

settings • The main principles and methods for HCAI

prevention and control

Topic 10: Patient safety and invasive procedures

• The main types of adverse events associated with surgical and invasive procedural care

• The verification processes for improving surgical and invasive procedures' care

• How the use of guidelines, verification processes and teamwork can facilitate the correct patient receiving the correct treatment at the appropriate time and place

Topic 11: Improving medication safety

• Understand the scale of medication error • Understand the steps involved in a patient using

medication • Identify factors that contribute to medication error • Learn how to make medication use safer

Implementation

• Identifying learning outcomes • Mapping patient safety to existing curriculum • A balance between integration of material into

existing curriculum and ability to coordinate delivery effectively

• Assessing capacity within the college to deliver the patient safety curriculum and engaging in capacity building work

WHO patient safety curriculum integration into QU CPH curriculum

Topic Course Definition of key concept PHAR240 What is patient safety? PHAR440 What is human factor PHAR525 Understanding system PHAR450 Being effective team player PHAR231, SPEP Learning from errors PHAR440 Understanding and managing clinical risk PHAR525 Introduction to quality improvement methods PHAR440, PHAR450, PHAR525 Engaging with patients and carers PHAR230, PHAR240/241,

PHAR340/ 341, PHAR350, PHAR440/441

Infection prevention and control PHAR441, PHAR481, PHAR491 Patient safety and invasive procedures PHAR481 (SSI) Medication safety PHAR440

Assessment

• Assessments strongly influence learning outcomes for students and therefore should align with desired learning outcomes

• In CPH written assessment (midterm and Final) and in PHAR450 (project on patient safety)

Acknowledgments

WHO Patient Safety Curriculum Guide: http://www.who.int/patientsafety/education/curriculum/en/

State of Qatar Supreme Council of Health