Jump-Starting Faculty Development in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Education: A Team-Based Approach

Problem Quality improvement (QI) and patient safety (PS) are cornerstones of health care delivery. Accreditation organizations increasingly require that learners engage in QIPS. For many faculty, these are new domains. Additional faculty development is needed for them to teach and mentor trainees. Existing programs, such as the Association of American Medical Colleges Teaching for Quality (Te4Q) program, target individual faculty and thus accommodate only limited participants at a time, which is problematic for institutions that need to train many faculty to support their learners. Approach The authors invited diverse stakeholders from across the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine and related health systems to participate in a team-based adaptation of the Te4Q program. The teams completed 5 projects based on previously identified priority areas to increase local capacity for QIPS teaching: (1) online modules for faculty new to QIPS, (2) a tool kit for graduate medical education programs, (3) a module for medical school clerkship directors, (4) guidelines for faculty to integrate early learners into QI projects, and (5) a "Teach-for-UCSF" certificate program in teaching QIPS. Outcomes Thirty-five faculty members participated in the initial Te4Q workshop in January 2015, and by fall 2016, all projects were implemented. These projects led to additional faculty development initiatives and a rapidly expanding number of faculty across campus with expertise in teaching QIPS. Next Steps Further collaborations between faculty focused on QIPS in care delivery and those focused on QIPS education to promote QIPS teaching have resulted from these initial projects.