Online education program in patient safety and quality improvement

Victoria Kaprielian, Clinical Professor, Community and Family Medicine, School of Medicine
Beau Wiseman, Training Coordinator, Community and Family Medicine, School of Medicine
Barbara Gregory, Clincal Research Coordinator, Community and Family Medicine, School of Medicine

This project created six interactive online modules to teach key concepts of patient safety and quality improvement to health care professions trainees (medical, physician assistant, nursing and others).

The module topics are:

  • What is quality improvement?
  • The how’s and why’s of chart audits
  • The evolution of quality and safety in health care
  • Culture of safety
  • Anatomy of error
  • Mistake-proofing care

The modules were created using Macromedia Flash by a local multimedia/web programming firm contracted for this project. Kaprielian, Wiseman and Gregory served as project coordinators and content authors.

The modules were first incorporated into the second year medical curriculum in Fall 2005, and later into the Family Medicine and the physician assistant curricula, where they are still actively used in summer 2007. The modules are available to the entire Duke University community, on the web or on CD.

In the medical student program, students completed pre- and post-module tests on patient safety culture and content knowledge. Results of these studies were to be analyzed following additional data collection in August 2006. Impact of the modules in other programs was to be judged using post-module surveys.

Project start date: 5/19/2004
Funding awarded: $39,721