Results of an effort to integrate quality and safety into medical and nursing school curricula and foster joint learning.
A seminal 2009 report describes the lack of formal curricula in patient safety and quality improvement in medical education as an unmet need, and similar concerns have been raised about nursing and pharmacy education. This study reports on an initiative to develop interprofessional curricula in patient safety, involving both nursing and medical students, at six institutions across the country. Although the institutions encountered many challenges—including a lack of faculty expertise in patient safety—they were able to implement several novel curricula that were well-received by students. However, the authors note that because there are no well-validated means of evaluating students' knowledge and skills in patient safety, their ability to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of interprofessional curricula was limited.