Doctor says education and research key to patient safety improvements
Calls for approach to optimize human performance within the system
Friday July 4, 2008 -- Jason Thompson
Dr. Bob Byrick says while patient safety improvement is possible, it requires an approach that brings education and research together to optimize performance of healthcare providers within a system.

A member of the Canadian Patient Safety Institute’s (CPSI) education and professional development advisory committee and a University of Toronto representative to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, Byrick recently spoke about patient safety improvement at The Michener Institute’s community forum on patient safety and learning from adverse events.

According to Byrick, a major problem within the system is that healthcare providers are educated in their separate disciplines, yet are expected to work as a team once on the job.

Because this isn’t always an easy transition, and one that could compromise patient safety, Byrick says CPSI has taken a lead role in developing safety competencies which can be included in education curriculums.

The safety competencies provide a framework allowing for the incorporation of non-technical skills into education for all healthcare professionals. Non-technical skills include teamwork, task management, situation awareness and decision making.

This framework addresses problems related to systemic issues, ergonomic and human factors in the workplace, critical thinking and decision-making, team function as well as provider well-being and professional competence, Byrick says, noting non-technical skills are transferable to many disciplines and can be learned in a simulated environment.

He adds however, that while innovations in education and research will require curriculum renewal in academic institutions, there is no widely accepted approach to incorporating the safety competencies into educational curriculums for healthcare professionals.

To overcome this, Byrick points to the work of the Centre for Patient Safety that will be established by the University of Toronto and its affiliated hospitals. The centre’s mission is to create, disseminate and evaluate new knowledge in the field of Patient Safety in order to provide the safest care to patients.

The Centre will work with educators in all University of Toronto faculties to help them integrate the safety 
competencies into their curricula.

Click here for more information on CPSI’s safety competencies.

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