Foundations of Healthcare Excellence: Rethinking patient safety
Learn how to think and act differently about patient safety in care beyond the absence of harm to include the relationships, environments and systems that shape safer care. This self-paced learning module introduces a broader understanding of patient safety and provides practical tools, reflection activities and discussion opportunities to help you strengthen safety in your own organization or care setting.
Estimated time to complete: 1.5–2 hours
:quality(80))
- What you'll get
You’ll learn how to:
Understand patient safety beyond incidents and harm
Use practical tools and conversation starters to help talk about safety differently
Engage colleagues, patients, families and caregivers in conversations about safety
Bring safety conversations into everyday practice
- Topics
- Health equity
- Cultural Safety
- Patient safety
- Audience
Community organization
Healthcare leader
Point of care provider
About patient safety
Traditionally, patient safety efforts have focused on reporting and managing incidents, primarily in hospital settings and often with a focus on physical harm. While that work is important, it only tells part of the story. Patient safety is also about relationships, communication, trust and culture. It includes approaches that promote safer care, not just reacting when things go wrong. It also means recognizing that the absence of harm does not necessarily mean that care is safe.
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 module explores a broader and more inclusive understanding of patient safety that is relational, proactive and grounded in the experiences of those receiving and delivering care. Through videos, reflection activities and team discussions, learners are encouraged to think differently about safety and identify practical ways to embed it into everyday work.
:quality(80)){kind=icon}
Start meaningful conversations about safety with colleagues, patients, caregivers and communities
Use HEC’s Organizational Self-Assessment Tool to reflect on engagement practices within your team or organization.
Identify one specific opportunity for growth and take a first step toward strengthening engagement practices in your setting.
Why take this module?
Rethinking patient safety begins with a conversation. Every interaction, decision and conversation is an opportunity to shape safer care. This module will help you broaden your understanding of patient safety, recognize opportunities for meaningful conversations and use curiosity and relationships to strengthen safety in everyday practice.
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 think and act differently about patient safety and build a culture where safety is everyone's responsibility, including:
Healthcare and social care providers who want to strengthen patient safety by fostering meaningful conversations with patients, caregivers and colleagues.
Quality improvement and patient safety professionals looking to broaden approaches to patient safety and embed safety into everyday work.
Health leaders, managers and decision-makers seeking to build organizational cultures where safety is a shared responsibility and learning is encouraged.
Educators, facilitators and improvement advisors supporting learning, quality improvement and patient safety across healthcare settings.
Patient, family and caregiver partners who want to contribute to conversations that strengthen the safety, quality and experience of care
:quality(80))
:quality(80))
:quality(80))
:quality(80))