This unit provides a comprehensive introduction to contemporary healthcare quality and safety with a focus on patient centered care. Students will explore the various definitions of healthcare quality and safety, and the foundations of patient safety and quality improvement design within the healthcare arena and their own individual practice. Using quality and safety as a framework, students will examine trends in critical incidents in healthcare that result in adverse outcomes for patients. Applying methods to assess the delivery of quality patient-centred care and critically appraising work practices on an individual level will provide a basis for identifying current gaps in quality and safety. This unit also introduces assessment tools and analytic methods for quality and safety in healthcare and the role of organisational change preparing for successful initiatives in the workplace intended to improve quality and safety.

“Good care is more than the absence of bad” (Balding, 2013)