Quality improvement and patient safety competencies across the learning continuum (November 2019)

Summary

Published by the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC), Quality improvement and patient safety competencies across the learning continuum is designed for:

• faculty
• medical education curricula developers
• residents
• medical school administration
• Designated Institutional Officials (DIOs)
• clinical leaders at teaching hospitals 
• and others interested in undergraduate, graduate, and continuing medical education.

Content

There have been many advancements in medical education over the past 20 years, including how outcomes such as competencies are defined and used to guide teaching and learning. To support this positive change, the AAMC has launched the New and Emerging Areas in Medicine series. This first report in the series focuses on quality improvement and patient safety (QIPS) competencies across the continuum of medical education.

It presents a roadmap for curricular and professional development, performance assessment, and improvement of healthcare services and outcomes. The competencies can help educators design and deliver curricula and help learners develop professionally. The competencies are for use in:

• engaging diverse health care professionals in collaborative patient-safety-improvement discussions, including cross-continuum and cross-discipline colleagues
• conducting gap analyses of local curricula and training programmes
• planning individual professional development
• developing curricular learning objectives
• developing assessment tools
• furthering research and scholarship in medical education and quality improvement
• guiding the strategic integration of QIPS into the curricula and the clinical learning environment.