Quality, Safety and Leadership

Precision Health: Quality and Safety Leadership Specialization

Quality and Safety Leadership

Achieving optimal outcomes

Quality and Safety Leadership is about achieving optimal outcomes for patient populations. The Health Quality Council of Alberta’ Quality Matrix has six dimensions of quality: Acceptability, Accessibility, Appropriateness, Effectiveness, Efficiency and Safety.  Precision Health addresses each of them while improving patient outcomes. Quality and Safety Leadership requires education in Precision Medicine, quality and safety management, and leadership skills to be able to deliver the coproduction of care. In addition to knowledge in the “omics” disciplines, understanding the elements of change management, provider education, and data analysis are critical for the successful application of Precision Health.

Courses

Students in the Quality & Safety Leadership Certificate must complete four courses (three units each).


Foundations of Precision Health

A key element of Precision Health is the ability to critically appraise myriad types of data in order to facilitate better clinical decisions, health system improvements and clinical education delivery. Beginning with the essential statistical underpinnings of data analyses in health and related research, and demonstrating ways in which those analyses can be leveraged to improve decision making and health and education systems, this course will set students up to succeed in Precision Health specializations.

Ethics and Law of Precision Health

Building upon the Foundations of Precision Health, this course is an in-depth study of legal, ethical, and regulatory concepts in precision health.

Quality Management

Quality management principles and science will be introduced starting with quality management frameworks and theory that will guide and rationalize students’ learning. Quality management tools for data analysis, prioritization, improvement and change management will be introduced and described which will help students succeed in quality improvement projects.

Safety Management

An introduction to safety science and the key concepts for managing patients’ safety in the healthcare system. Students will explore proactive and reactive safety management, recognizing the similarities and differences with quality management. Students will learn concepts of managing a serious patient harm event with a focus on system analysis.

Courses

Graduate Diploma courses are the same for all four specializations. Students must complete four courses (three units each).


Health System Leadership

A critical examination of leadership development in the era of precision health as it relates to individual leadership practices, multi-disciplinary teams and the broader healthcare system. Exploration of new frameworks to facilitate collaborative decision making and effecting change. Students will use critical appraisal to identify the most relevant research and make evidence-based decisions to problem-solve around real issues in health systems.

Managing Complex Projects in Precision Health

Selection and application of the proper approaches for planning and executing complex innovative projects. Particular emphasis is placed on managing the innovative (novel and useful) ideas in a precision health context.

Elective 1 - Choose course from any specialization

Elective 2 - Choose course from any specialization

Courses

Students must complete 4 courses (3 units each).


Advanced Quality & Safety Leadership

Theories and principles of quality management and provide the student an opportunity to acquire the skills required to complete and implement a quality improvement project.

Integrated Topics

Integration of theory, research, application and experience in the student’s area of sub-specialization. This course provides the student the opportunity to integrate theory and practice: to link the knowledge and skills derived from the MPrecH program, published research articles, and their experiential learning opportunity. Students will participate in collaborative discussions regarding professional and ethical issues, Experiential Learning situations, research and how to apply theory to the practice of precision health in the student’s area of specialization.

Experiential Learning Opportunities - A & B (3 units each)

Precision Health Experiential Learning opportunities with professional supervision in student's area of specialization or interest. This course must be taken concurrently with MDPM 6XX (Integrated Topics). This course is intended to offer practical and supervised opportunities to develop students’ existing precision medicine knowledge and skills to an advanced specialized level. The purpose of this course is to provide advanced level opportunities for development, integration, and experience through either a research project or internship to foster the acquisition of knowledge, and skills relevant to precision health. Together with the Integrated Topics course, the Experiential Learning Opportunity promotes integration of research, theory and practice.

Ready to Apply?

1. Create an eID

2. Create a Graduate Studies application

3. Complete the main UCalgary graduate programs questions in the application

4. Select Medicine – Precision Health Graduate Certificate