Patient Safety Competencies Affinity Group
About the Patient Safety Competencies Affinity Group
In 2024, the National Action Alliance established the Patient Safety Competencies Affinity Group to help all healthcare team members—from board members and administrators to clinical and non-clinical team members—increase their capacity for providing safe healthcare. To inform this effort, the Affinity Group conducted an environmental scan, identifying 12 fundamental competency domains that can serve as a framework for action. This framework can be used to facilitate group learning and develop resources for the Alliance community. The environmental scan also identified resources from multiple interdisciplinary sources, including but not limited to the following organizations:
- American Association of Colleges of Nursing
- American Association of Medical Colleges
- Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education
- American College of Healthcare Executives
- Canadian Patient Safety Institute
- Certification Board for Professionals in Patient Safety
- Institute for Healthcare Improvement
- Interprofessional Education Collaborative
- National Academy of Science
- National Association for Healthcare Quality
- National Center for Patient Safety
- Quality and Safety Education for Nurses
- Society of Hospital Medicine
- The Joint Commission
- Veterans Health Administration
- World Health Organization
Patient Safety Competencies Affinity Group Accomplishments and Activities in 2024
The online library in development will provide the National Action Alliance community with a library of resources on healthcare safety competencies, including articles and reports, curricula, training materials, and assessments. They are intended for a range of different audiences, including but not limited to medical students, nursing students, teaching hospitals, healthcare professionals, quality and safety professionals, and healthcare administrators.
The 12 Fundamental Competency Domains
Using the results of the environmental scan, the Affinity Group identified 12 fundamental safety competency domains. Each domain is broken down into themes. Some of these themes appear in the literature on competencies reviewed by the National Action Alliance more frequently than others, which reflects the priorities of the healthcare community. In the figure, domains are listed in order of how often their themes appeared in this literature, which is also represented in the varying widths of the bars.
The 12 Safety Competency Domains Ordered by Frequency of Their Themes
The themes that comprise each of the 12 domains are:
- Leadership, Governance, and Culture
- Leadership and Governance for Safety
- Shared Vision for Safety
- Just Culture/Culture of Learning and Safety
- Teamwork and Teaming
- Ethics
- Psychological Safety
- Transparency
- Tools for Improvement and Implementation
- Quality Improvement Methodologies and Tools
- Change Management
- Research to Practice
- Implementation Science
- Patient Engagement
- Patient/Family Engagement
- Shared Decision-Making
- Patient-Centered Care
- Evidence-Based Practice
- Evidence-Based Practices
- Safe Clinical Practices (Team and Individual)
- Communication
- Communication Processes
- Care Transitions/Handoff
- Identifying, Reporting, and Responding to Safety Risks and Events
- Identifying and Mitigating Safety Risks
- Safety Reporting
- Responding to Safety Events: Immediate Actions and Longer-Term/Systemic Follow up
- Disclosure
- Human Factors
- Human Factors Engineering
- Types of Human Error
- Situational Awareness
- Measuring Progress
- Measurement
- Leveraging Data and Analytics to Improve Safety
- Creating a Business Case for Safety
- Systems Thinking and High Reliability
- Systems Thinking
- High Reliability
- Standardization
- Caring for Caregivers
- Workload Management
- Burnout
- Worker Safety
- Fatigue
- Moral Injury
- Patient Safety/Worker Safety Relationship and Continuum
- Post Harm Incident-Care for Providers
- Technology
- Safe Use of Technology and Informatics
- Leveraging Technology for Patient Safety
- Equity
- Equity
- Disparities in Care
- Bias
Affinity Group Experts
The following experts are currently participants on the Patient Safety Competencies Affinity Group:
- Lisa Howley, PhD, MEd, Senior Director for Transforming Medical Education, Association of American Medical Colleges
- Molly J. Lowe, Vice President, Learning, American College of Healthcare Executives
- Patricia A. McGaffigan, RN, MS, CPPS, Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement
- Stephanie Mercado, CAE, CPHQ, Chief Executive Officer/Executive Director, National Association for Healthcare Quality
- Greg Ogrinc, MD, MS, Senior Vice President, Certification Standards and Programs, American Board of Medical Specialties
- Cheryl Peterson, MSN, RN, Vice President of Nursing Programs, American Nurses Association
- Steve Singer, PhD, Vice President of Education and Outreach, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education
- Joan Stanley, PhD, NP, FAAN, FAANP, Chief Academic Officer, American Association of Colleges of Nursing
- Kevin B. Weiss, MD, MPH, Chief Sponsoring Institutions and Clinical Learning Environments Officer, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education
- Federal Partner: Edward E. Yackel, DNP, FNP-C, FAANP, Executive Director, National Center for Patient Safety, Veterans Health Administration
- Federal Partner: Amy Kolwaite, PhD, ARNP, MPH, CAPT, Chief of Health Systems Strengthening, Resilience, and Training Branch, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- National Action Alliance Facilitator: Monika Haugstetter, MHA, MSN, RN, CPHQ, Health Scientist Administrator, Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
- National Action Alliance Facilitator: Jennifer Trallo Schreiber, MSN, MBA, RN, CPPS, CPHQ, Principal Healthcare Analyst, Ripple Effect
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