Patient safety – Development, implementation and evaluation of an inter-professional teaching concept

Objective: Patient safety has high priority in health care. Since successful interprofessional collaboration is essential for patient safety, the topic should ideally be addressed interprofessionally in the curricula. The aim of the project was the development and implementation of an interprofessional teaching concept “patient safety” for medical students and students of health professions at the Medical Faculty Heidelberg. Methodology: The learning objectives were formulated on the basis of the “Patient Safety Learning Objective Catalog” (“Lernzielkatalog Patientensicherheit”) of the Society for Medical Education (Gesellschaft für Medizinische Ausbildung, GMA) and on the basis of the American Interprofessional Competence Profile “Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice”. Two courses were designed for interprofessional groups of approximately 15 participants. The learning content was designed interactively through the development of the project, its application and critical discussion of error reporting systems and security checklists as well as role-plays and video material. The evaluation was carried out by means of descriptive analysis of a structured course evaluation system, which was developed for this study. Results: 28 students took part in the courses. 82% of the students considered the topic “patient safety” to be relevant. In 82% of the cases, the participants rated the interprofessional aspect of the course as valuable. Overall, 73% of students whished for more interprofessional education. Conclusion: The results of the evaluation show that the teaching concept is well accepted by the students and encourage the implementation of further interprofessional courses with a thematic relevance.