(WHO) Patient Safety Curriculum Guide - CAIPE

once students understand how health care
is delivered and they are more familiar with
the workplace environment.
ñ Students will be more likely to change practices
if they have the opportunity to use what they
have learnt shortly after it is covered in the
curriculum.
When teaching a patient safety topic, there are
advantages if the knowledge and performance
requirements are covered together. A clear
understanding of the scope of a problem in
patient safety will provide motivation and insight
when learning about performance requirements.
Students are also less likely to feel demoralized
about the risks facing patients from the healthcare
system they will soon be a part of. If they
explore solutions (applications) and learn practical
strategies (performance elements) to make them
safer providers of health care at the same time,
they will be more positive. For logistical reasons,
it may not be possible to cover the knowledge
and performance requirements of a patient safety
topic at the same time.
If your curriculum is traditional, then knowledge
and performance requirements of patient safety
are best taught in later years when students have
more knowledge of professional practice and
exposure to patients and workplace skills’ training.
The context for the knowledge and performance
requirements should match the students’ ability
to put into practice their new knowledge.
Introductory patient safety knowledge can still be
included in the early years in subjects such as
public health, epidemiology, ethics, or other
behavioural science-based subjects. Suitable topics
for early introduction include: (i) what is patient
safety?; and (ii) systems and complexity in health
care. If your curriculum is integrated and students
are taught clinical skills from the first year, then
patient safety topics are best introduced early and
vertically integrated throughout the entire course.
This makes patient safety a constant theme and
provides opportunities to reinforce and build
upon earlier learning. Ideally, students should be
exposed to patient safety education prior to and
upon entering the workplace.
When and where in the curriculum are
particular subjects and topics taught
that might lend themselves to inclusion
of patient safety teaching?
Any area of learning relevant to a particular
profession can potentially house a patient safety
topic if a sample case is part of the session and
is relevant to that discipline. For example, a case
involving a medication error in a child could be
used as the starting point for teaching nurses
about understanding and learning from errors
while studying paediatrics. Similarly, during
learning about managing patients after hip
or knee replacements, a physiotherapy student
could learn about the topic “patient safety
and invasive procedures”. Many areas could house
the topic of “understanding and learning from
errors” if the case was relevant to that particular
discipline. The learning, however, is generic
and relevant for all disciplines and all students.
Box A.6.3 sets out opportunities for examining
the integration of patient safety topics.
Box A.6.3. Integration of patient safety topics
Patient safety topic
Minimizing infection through
improved infection control
Improving medication safety
Being an effective team player
What is patient safety?
Subjects that could house patient safety topics
Microbiology
Procedural skills’ training
Infectious diseases
Clinical placements
Pharmacology
Therapeutics
Orientation programmes
Communication skills’ training (interprofessional)
Emergency disaster training
Ethics
Introduction to the clinical environment
Clinical and procedural skills’ training
43 Part A 6. How to integrate patient safety learning into your curriculum