Customized PSEP – Canada conference for Alberta Health Services

In January 2016, Alberta Health Services (AHS) hosted a Patient Safety Education Program – Canada (PSEP – Canada) Become a Patient Safety Trainer conference in Edmonton, for 29 members of the AHS Edmonton Zone Integrated Quality Management (IQM) team. The customized, two-day conference was a collaborative effort between the Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI) and AHS.

The Edmonton Zone IQM portfolio was formed to unite ownership of quality and patient safety. The diverse multidisciplinary team comprised of: clinical safety leaders, clinical quality consultants, educators and project managers (medication safety, accreditation, etc.), support all aspects of patient safety and quality improvement throughout the zone. Since the IQM team was formed three years ago, their role has evolved and so have the requests to provide education.

"The IQM team members are experts in their individual clinical areas, not necessarily in how to teach aspects of quality and patient safety to adult learners," says Dr. Dawn Hartfield, Medical Director Quality, IQM (Edmonton Zone). "With the introduction of frontline quality improvement teams across AHS, there has been a cultural shift where there is a need for more education around quality and safety. PSEP – Canada is a unique and complementary product that has helped to educate our educators."

Dr. Hartfield became a PSEP – Canada Master Facilitator in May 2015, and was instrumental in bringing the PSEP – Canada conference to AHS. She was one of the facilitators and arranged for two other PSEP – Canada facilitators within AHS, as well as one local facilitator from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), to deliver the curriculum for the January conference. Dr. Hartfield says that using local facilitators made the cost to deliver the conference very reasonable.

The customized PSEP – Canada session  incorporated  13 modules which  included topics on:  Gaps in Patient Safety, What is Patient Safety, Human Factors Design, Organization and Culture, Communications, Teamwork, Teaching Skills, Patients as Partners, Capacity Building, Systems Thinking, Leadership, Medication Reconciliation, and Methods for Improving Safety. CPSI worked with AHS staff to ensure the program would be effective and meet the needs within the IQM Team.

An IQM Education Working Group is now being organized to further develop quality and patient safety education that provides something for everyone. In addition to using existing curriculum developed by AHS Quality Healthcare Improvement, a core set of modules in concepts such as just culture, an introduction to quality, and PDSA cycles are being developed to be used by the team. These modules will provide the background materials to start the conversation and serve as a quick resource when the IQM team is asked to deliver educational sessions to frontline quality improvement teams.

Each quarter, the IQM team hosts educational sessions for all staff, to advance the quality culture across the Edmonton zone. IQM Connections Forum is delivered in a half-day program with come-and-go sessions on topics that help people better understand the concepts of quality and patient safety. The IQM team says the PSEP – Canada training has helped them feel better prepared to deliver presentations for this type of forum.

"PSEP – Canada nailed it in terms of organization and providing current content that keeps people engaged," says Dr. Hartfield. "The staff at CPSI are so flexible and made it easy to adapt the PSEP – Canada program to fit our needs. It is not often that our team gets to spend two days together and the feedback we received was so positive. There was such an upbeat energy in the room and the team was so enthusiastic knowing that upon completing the course they could take what they learned back to the workplace."

Dr. Hartfield says there was a lot of interest both within and outside the Edmonton Zone to participate in the January conference. Other zones within AHS have since expressed an interest in the PSEP – Canada Become a Patient Safety Trainer conference and are looking to bring the program to their regions.

To learn more about bringing a PSEP – Canada conference to your organization, email psepcanada@cpsi-icsp.ca