PSEP-Canada Evaluative Research Plan

The PSEP-Canada Evaluative Research Plan proposes an 18-month program evaluation of patient safety training program for healthcare professionals working in Canada. Specifically, the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine’s Patient Safety Education Program (PSEP) adapted for use in collaboration with the Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI). PSEP was originally developed to address perceived gaps in patient safety training in the US by delivering best practice patient safety training through a high-impact, high-dissemination curriculum model. To achieve a similar curriculum suitable for the Canadian health care system PSEP and CPSI have collaboratively mapped the PSEP curriculum against the Accreditation Canada’s Required Organizational Practices, creating the adaptive product PSEP-Canada. Since 2010 nine “Become a Patient Safety Trainer” conferences have been held in provinces throughout Canada, graduating 433 Trainers from 86 Health Care Organizations (HCOs). The main aim of this project is to evaluate the program’s success in effecting patient safety capability amongst Trainers and delivering training and capacity for patient safety within the Canadian healthcare system. It will also identify strategies for implementing patient safety considered successful within an HCO context. The research is designed to capture data that furthers understanding of the attitudes, knowledge, skills, behaviors, outcomes and norms which ensure patient safety can be effectively and successfully implemented in HCOs following PSEP training. This will be accomplished through mixed method analysis of quantitative and qualitative data collected during the period of the program’s delivery as well as for the purposes of evaluation. Key methods include semi structured telephone interviews with sampled trainers; online surveys of trainers and HCOs; follow up interviews with sampled trainers and HCOs. Analysis will surface changes in Trainer knowledge, attitudes, and skills as well as key concepts underpinning trainers’ learned experiences. Trainers will be asked to provide evidence of patient safety content teaching that they have engaged in, as well as quality improvement projects they have implemented. Survey data collected from quality improvement officers (QIOs) in 86 organizations will enable the project to explore the impact of patient safety training from a process-orientated as well as outcomes-driven perspective. This research will surface effective strategies, experiences, tools and cases to cascade out to PSEP-Canada Trainers as well as identify some of the barriers to the implementation of patient safety.