Patient safety comes to DVD
Thursday October 4, 2007 -- Jason Thompson
A series of patient safety DVDs made in the United Kingdom has been adapted for Canadian healthcare organizations as a patient safety resource.

Dr. Susan Brien, director of operations for Quebec, Atlantic Canada and Nunavut with the Canadian Patient Safety Institute, says the DVDs can be used globally throughout an organization to introduce theories and concepts around safety.

Since it was originally developed, the series Delivering Patient Safety has been customized by a number of countries for use in their own healthcare systems.

“(It’s) a collection of international and Canadian experts commenting about safety themes,” Brien says. “The beauty of this tool is that it’s applicable to everyone from the new nurse . . . to the board director.”

Brien explains CPSI has been looking for a multi-media tool that could help hospitals with some of the key concepts surrounding patient safety. She says during discussions with hospitals surrounding patient safety, it discovered that many on the basic concepts are not being understood on the front lines.

“We wanted to have an engaging multi-media tool that we could use,” Brien says.

According to Brien, the most important item in the DVD series is a disc containing a collection of Power Point slides, a user’s guide and a unique section called Safety To Go.

“These are mini presentations that organizations can use themselves to present to boards or medical advisory committees utilizing clips from the DVDs, which we selected, and also providing some questions they should be asking their board members or medical advisory committees,” she says.

“It basically tells people how to use it within their own organization.”

Brien says the adaptation for the DVD series for Canadian audiences was only made possible because of the pre-investment by many provincial governments or provincial safety agencies.

The DVD series will be available for purchase on CPSI’s website after Oct. 11 as well as at Halifax 7: The Canadian Healthcare Safety Symposium, where the series is being launched.

A nine-minute trailer of the DVD series is available for viewing at www.patientsafetyinstitute.ca.