Foundations of Healthcare Excellence: Cultural Safety
Discover how racism experienced by First Nations, Inuit and Métis affects safety and how we can take action to improve cultural safety in care. Through practical tools, reflection activities and discussion opportunities, this self-paced module will help you recognize racism in healthcare interactions, systems and structures, and identify actions you can take to foster culturally safer care.
Estimated time to complete: 1.5–2 hours
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- What you'll get
You’ll learn how to:
Understand cultural safety and why it matters to the quality and safety of care
Recognize opportunities to foster culturally safer care with First Nations, Inuit and Métis patients, families and communities
Reflect on how racism, power imbalances and bias influence care experiences
Support conversations about cultural safety in your organization
- Topics
- Aging in place
- Cultural Safety
- Health equity
- Audience
Community organization
Healthcare leader
Point of care provider
About cultural safety
Racism experienced by First Nations, Inuit and Métis in the healthcare system is a significant patient safety and quality issue. Systemic racism continues to contribute to inequities in access to healthcare, disparities in health outcomes and direct and indirect harm through policies, practices and assumptions that result in culturally unsafe care. These forms of harm can only be fully understood by listening to those who have experienced them.
Cultural safety is determined by the person receiving care. It depends on respectful engagement, recognition of power imbalances and a commitment to addressing racism within healthcare systems and structures. This module introduces key concepts and practices to help learners better understand First Nations, Inuit and Métis-specific racism, reflect on their own role through cultural humility, and identify opportunities to support culturally safer care.
About the Foundations of Healthcare Excellence Learning Series
The Foundations of Healthcare Excellence is a self-paced e-learning series and the recommended starting point for exploring core concepts that underpin healthcare excellence: engagement-capable environments, cultural safety, patient safety, and health equity.
Each module includes practical tools, guided reflection and discussion activities to help leaners apply their learning within their own organization or care setting.
Continue your learning by exploring the other foundations in the learning series. Together, these self-paced modules build a shared understanding of the foundational concepts that support high-quality, safe and equitable care.
What you’ll learn
This self-paced learning module combines practical learning with individual reflection and team discussion to help learners strengthen meaningful engagement in their own care settings.
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Recognize First Nations, Inuit and Métis-specific racism as a patient safety issue.
Reflect on how racism and discrimination show up in healthcare, and how they create unsafe care experiences.
Reflect on how racism and discrimination show up in healthcare, and how they create unsafe care experiences.
Consider your own role in contributing to culturally safe care through humility, self-reflection and action.
Why take this module?
Creating culturally safe care begins with understanding the First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities you serve and building meaningful, reciprocal relationships grounded in trust and humility.
This module provides a practical starting point to help you identify where to focus your efforts, strengthen cultural safety in your own context and take meaningful first steps toward addressing racism in healthcare.
Whether you are beginning your learning journey or building on existing knowledge, this module provides a shared understanding of cultural safety and practical approaches you can apply in your own role, organization or care setting.
How the modules work
While each module can be completed independently, exploring the learning series together helps build a shared understanding that supports reflection, discussion and action within your own care setting or community. If you're completing the module individually, some reflection and discussion activities are designed to be completed with your team or colleagues.
Who should enroll?
This module is intended for individuals and teams who want to better understand First Nations, Inuit and Métis-specific racism and its impact on the quality and safety of care, including:
Healthcare and social care providers who want to better understand how racism and discrimination can influence care experiences and identify opportunities to support culturally safer care in their everyday practice.
Quality improvement and patient safety professionals looking to integrate cultural safety into improvement initiatives and organizational change.
Health leaders, managers and decision-makers who want to support organizational efforts to address racism, strengthen relationships with First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities and foster culturally safer care.
Educators, facilitators and improvement advisors supporting learning, quality improvement and organizational change across healthcare settings.
Patient, family and caregiver partners, particularly First Nations, Inuit and Métis partners and those working alongside Indigenous communities, who want to contribute to culturally safer healthcare systems and improvement efforts.
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