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For Rochelle Currie, a patient safety scorecard that shows a lot of yellow – and even maybe a little red – can be a welcome and refreshing sight. You might think it’s a surprising perspective from someone accountable for quality and patient safety across an entire province. Yet Currie knows from experience that the journey to safer care truly begins when organizations are willing to get curious about what’s really happening.

Every year, World Patient Safety Day provides an important opportunity to recognize patient safety as a global health priority and reflect on what each of us can do to make care safer.

At Riverview Health Centre, curiosity is part of the culture. Every question is an opportunity to learn something new and consider what could be done differently. That mindset keeps improvement moving - and shows how safer, more person-centred care is shaped in everyday moments.

What shapes safer care? Sometimes it’s a conversation. Sometimes it’s a relationship, a small improvement or a decision that helps someone feel heard, respected and safe.

Primary care teams see firsthand where the pressures on access show up everyday. They also know where the opportunities to improve access lie — which appointments could be handled differently, which workflows could be redesigned, which small changes could free up real capacity. Photo credit: Université de Sherbrooke

Over four months, more than 150 participants across Canada joined the Leading Safety Differently action series. They explored a shared question: how can everyday work contribute to safer care? Across the series, one message was clear: leading safety differently is shaped through relationships, trust, learning and ongoing dialogue, not only through formal patient safety systems and compliance.

There is no question that cultural safety matters in healthcare delivery. But how do you create cultural safety programming that sticks? The experience of a healthcare team in Nunavut provides helpful insights that can support other organizations in identifying approaches for their own cultural safety programs.

Healthcare organizations are increasingly recognizing the urgent need to address systemic racism experienced by First Nations, Inuit and Métis and improve cultural safety. But where do we start — and how do we move from intention to meaningful action?