312.678.01 INTRODUCTION TO HEALTHCARE QUALITY AND PATIENT SAFETY: A MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE

Introduces students to the latest thinking on healthcare quality and patient safety improvement through didactic sessions, interactive exercises and case studies that have direct relevance for the public health practitioner, healthcare administrator or clinician. Focuses on the specific domains of healthcare quality and patient safety based on the strategies recommended by the Institute of Medicine report "To Err is Human."

Upon successfully completing this course, students will be able to: 1. Recognize the complexities and challenges of evaluating progress toward improving patient safety. 2. Explain current thinking regarding strategies to increase the extent to which clinicians use evidence-based interventions. 3. Summarize current strategies to improve the effectiveness and efficiency with which we identify and mitigate hazards in health care. 4. Appreciate the interplay between safety culture and communication that influence patient outcomes. 5. Learn strategies to improve safety culture and communication including the Comprehensive Unit Safety Program that has been successfully used to improve safety culture and communication at The Johns Hopkins and in hundreds of Michigan hospitals. 6. Identify organizational characteristics that are associated with improved patient safety. 7. Learn to develop an organizational scorecard to help answer an important question: Are patients safer as a result of our efforts?