Abstract
Emerging challenges in health care delivery demand systems of clinical practice capable of ensuring safe and reliable patient care. Oncology in particular is recognized for its high degree of complexity and potential for adverse events. New models of student education hold promise for producing a health care workforce armed with skills in patient safety. This training may have a particular impact on risk reduction in cancer care and ultimately improve clinical performance in oncology. A 1-day student program focused on the principles of patient safety was developed for the third-year medical school class. The core curriculum consisted of an online patient safety module, root cause analyses of actual patient safety events, and simulation scenarios designed to invoke patient safety skills. The program was successfully implemented and received an average of 4.2/5 on evaluations pertaining to its importance and effectiveness. Student surveys demonstrated that 59 % of students were not previously aware of system-based approaches to improving safety, 51 % of students had witnessed or experienced a patient safety issue, while only 10 % reported these events. Students reported feeling more empowered to act on patient safety issues as a result of the program. Educational programs can provide medical students with a foundation for skill development in medical error reduction and help enhance an organization’s culture of safety. This has the potential to reduce adverse events in complex patient care settings such as clinical oncology.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Hewitt M, Simone JV (1999) National cancer policy board. Ensuring the Quality of Cancer Care, Institute of Medicine and National Research Council
Levit L, Balogh E, Nass S, Ganz PA (2013) Delivering high-quality cancer care: charting a new course for a system in crisis. Institute of Medicine, National Academies Press (US)
(1999) To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. Kohn L, Corrigan J, Donaldson M, eds. Washington, DC: Committee on Quality of Health Care in America, Institute of Medicine. National Academies Press
(2001) Crossing the quality chasm: a new health system for the 21st century. Institute of Medicine. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press
Norton PG, Baker GR (2007) Patient safety in cancer care: a time for action, JNCI J Natl Cancer Inst
Rowe M, Gallagher TH (2007) Confronting medical errors in oncology and disclosing them to cancer patients, JCO
Tishelman C, Bernhardson BM, Blomberg K et al (2004) Complexity in caring for patients with advanced cancer. J Adv Nurs 45(4):420–429
Bunnell CA, Gross AH, Weingart SN et al (2013) High performance teamwork training and systems redesign in outpatient oncology. BMJ Qual Saf 22(5):405–413
Ko C, Chaudhry S (2002) The need for a multidisciplinary approach to cancer care. J Surg Res 105:53–57
Walsh KE, Dodd KS, Seetharaman K, Roblin DW, Herrinton LJ, Von Worley A, Usmani GN, Baer D, Gurwitz JH (2009) Medication errors among adults and children with cancer in the outpatient setting. J Clin Oncol 27(6):891–896
Ford EC, Terezakis S, Pronovost P, et al. (2010) Patient safety in radiation oncology: tools for improvement. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys
Gandhi TK, Bartel SB, Shulman LN et al (2005) Medication safety in the ambulatory chemotherapy setting. Cancer 104(11):2477–2483
Goldspiel BR, DeChristoforo R, Daniels CE (2000) A continuous improvement approach for reducing the number of chemotherapy-related medication errors. Am J Health Syst Pharm 4(Suppl 57):S4–S9
Fischer DS, Alfano S, Knobf MT et al (1996) Improving the cancer chemotherapy use process. J Clin Oncol 14:3148–3155
Bohmer R, Winslow A (1999) The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. HBS Case #699-025. Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston
Sandars J, Bax N, Mayer D, Wass V, Vickers R (2007) Educating undergraduate medical students about patient safety: priority areas for curriculum development. Med Teach 29(1):60–61
Armitage G, Cracknell A, Forrest K, Sandars J (2011) Twelve tips for implementing a patient safety curriculum in an undergraduate programme in medicine. Med Teach 33(7):535–540, Epub 2011 Feb 28
Mayer D, Klamen DL, Gunderson A, Barach P (2009) Telluride interdisciplinary roundtable. Designing a patient safety undergraduate medical curriculum: the telluride interdisciplinary roundtable experience. Teach Learn Med 21(1):52–58
Alper E, Rosenberg EI, O’Brien KE, Fischer M, Durning SJ (2009) Patient safety education at U.S. and Canadian medical schools: results from the 2006 Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine survey. Acad Med 84(12):1672–1676
Leung GK, Patil NG, Ip MS (2010) Introducing patient safety to undergraduate medical students—a pilot program delivered by health care administrators. Med Teach 32(12):e547–e551
Holmes JH, Balas EA, Boren SA (2002) A guide for developing patient safety curricula for undergraduate medical education. J Am Med Inform Assoc 9(6 Suppl):S124–S127
Smith SD, Henn P, Gaffney R, Hynes H, McAdoo J, Bradley C (2012) A study of innovative patient safety education. Clin Teach 9(1):37–40
Shekhter I, Rosen L, Sanko J, Everett-Thomas R, Fitzpatrick M, Birnbach D (2012) A patient safety course for preclinical medical students. Clin Teach 9(6):376–381
Wong BM, Etchells EE, Kuper A, Levinson W, Shojania KG (2010) Teaching quality improvement and patient safety to trainees: a systematic review. Acad Med 85:1425–1439
Walton M, Woodward H, Van Staalduinen S et al (2010) The WHO patient safety curriculum guide for medical schools. Qual Saf Health Care 19:542–546
Ogrinc G, Headrick LA, Mutha S, Coleman MT, O’Donnell J, Miles PV (2003) A framework for teaching medical students and residents about practice-based learning and improvement. Acad Med 78:748–756
World Health Organization: Patient Safety. Available act: http://www.who.int/patientsafety/en/. Last accessed 12/12/14
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality: Patient Safety Network. Available at: http://psnet.ahrq.gov/. Last accessed 12/12/14
IHI online learning: Introduction to Patient Safety. Available act: http://app.ihi.org/lms/onlinelearning.aspx. Last accessed at 12/12/14
(2000) First, do no harm part 1: a case study of systems failure. Producer: Partnership for Patient Safety & Risk Management Foundation. Chicago, IL: Partnership for Patient Safety
Noble DJ, Pronovost PJ (2010) Underreporting of patient safety incidents reduces health care’s ability to quantify and accurately measure harm reduction. J Patient Saf 6(4):247–250, Review
Crawford SY, Cohen MR, Tafesse E (2003) Systems factors in the reporting of serious medication errors in hospitals. J Med Syst 27(6):543–551
Seiden SC, Galvan C, Lamm R (2006) Role of medical students in preventing patient harm and enhancing patient safety. Qual Saf Health Care 15(4):272–276
Riechelmann RP, Tannock IF, Wang L, Saad ED, Taback NA, Krzyzanowska MK (2007) Potential drug interactions and duplicate prescriptions among cancer patients. J Natl Cancer Inst 99:592–600
Kasinathan S, Ang E, Lee J (2012) Patient handover in the oncology setting: an evidence utilisation project. Int J Evid Based Healthc 10(4):369–376
Compton J, Copeland K, Flanders S, Cassity C, Spetman M, Xiao Y, Kennerly D (2012) Implementing SBAR across a large multihospital health system. Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf 38(6):261–268
Vardaman JM, Cornell P, Gondo MB, Amis JM, Townsend-Gervis M, Thetford C (2012) Beyond communication: the role of standardized protocols in a changing health care environment. Health Care Manag Rev 37(1):88–97
Sundararaman S, Babbo AE, Brown JA, Doss R (2014) Improving patient safety in the radiation oncology setting through crew resource management. Pract Radiat Oncol 4(4):e181–e188
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic Supplementary Material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
ESM 1
(DOCX 21 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
James, T.A., Goedde, M., Bertsch, T. et al. Advancing the Future of Patient Safety in Oncology: Implications of Patient Safety Education on Cancer Care Delivery. J Canc Educ 31, 488–492 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-015-0821-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-015-0821-4