Description and evaluation of an interprofessional patient safety course for health professions and related sciences students.
As the science of patient safety evolves, methods for teaching patient safety concepts are being developed as well. This article describes the development of a formal curriculum in patient safety that sought to enroll students in all health professions (medicine, nursing, pharmacy, physical/occupational therapy, dentistry, social work, and law). The course sought to communicate the basic concepts of patient safety, including the science of errors, the culture of safety, and the use of evidence to improve patient safety. The authors discuss the challenges of enrolling students from different disciplines and students' perceptions of the course.