Overview

Driving meaningful change requires healthcare leaders who can identify the key decisions necessary to turn these goals into reality. “Healthcare Quality Improvement and Decision-Making” gives you the tools to develop quality improvement initiatives and drive a culture of safety and high reliability in healthcare organizations. You'll master key concepts around quality improvement and learn to think decisively about developments within your organization, team, and healthcare more broadly. Additional key concepts include a culture of safety, where you will dive into key methodologies to ensure that, as a leader, you are developing a welcoming and innovative environment. The course features a range of activities designed to help you apply your learning, including creating project charters, analyzing errors in a healthcare case study, exploring the most efficient project management methods, and conducting a plan-do-study-act analysis. Through applied learning, case study application, and culture of safety learning, you'll sharpen your ability to question, plan, and improve quality effectively in the healthcare sector. This is the third course in “Leadership for Healthcare Professionals” Specialization, a course series designed to help professionals in all healthcare roles sharpen their leadership skills and advance their careers.

Syllabus

Key Quality Improvement Theories and Practices

Welcome to the Healthcare Quality Improvement and Decision-Making course and to Module 1 on the Key Quality Improvement Theories and Practices! We start our course by learning about the concept of Quality Improvement (QI). This is a crucial concept for healthcare delivery as it focuses on enhancing the effectiveness, safety, and patient-centeredness of care while maximizing resource use and ensuring better outcomes of care. Let’s get started!

Quality Science Decision-Making Tools

Welcome to Module 2! In this module, we will learn about quality science decision-making tools. These are essential tools for improving quality and efficiency in healthcare. We will focus on learning how to use these tools to systematically analyze, evaluate, and enhance processes, performance, and healthcare outcomes. Let’s get started!

Culture of Safety in Healthcare

Welcome to Module 3! Creating a culture of safety within a healthcare organization is an essential foundation for the delivery of safe and high-quality care for both patients and healthcare staff. In this module, we will learn about high-reliability organizations, how they function, and what tools and resources they deploy to ensure continuous safety for those they service. Let’s get started!

Building a Culture of Safety

Welcome to Module 4, our last module of the course! We will conclude our learning journey in this course by learning about safety systems and improvement strategies, communication, and teamwork, and their role in building a culture of safety within healthcare organizations. We will also start developing skills in using data and technology to assess and prevent safety incidents. Let’s get started!