Engaging and Educating Resident Physicians in Patient Safety and Peer Review

Abstract Introduction This patient safety curriculum was developed to address two important needs in contemporary graduate medical education: training frontline providers in key patient safety skills and producing tangible products that demonstrate resident achievement in this area. The curriculum is geared towards second- and third-year internal medicine residents. Methods It employs a mixed-methods approach to teaching patient safety concepts by integrating standardized introductory cases with individualized real-time cases under consideration by the department's peer review committee. This resource consists of an instructional slide set and facilitator guide for the patient safety and peer review course, including standardized cases of medical error. Also included are a practical workflow depicting faculty and resident training, as well as guidance on the necessary collaboration with local peer review leadership. Results Following the training of 14 faculty members and curriculum completion by 60 residents, preliminary resident before-after survey results demonstrate a significant increase in the percentage of residents who report being able to complete a mortality review, feeling comfortable with key components of the curriculum (e.g., teaching the difference between active and latent failures, recognizing the difference between levels of standard of care), and having a high level of comfort with the concept of peer review (either performing it on a colleague's case or having a colleague perform it on one of their own cases). Discussion Integrating residents into ongoing departmental patient safety efforts can provide residency programs with a novel way to teach essential patient safety concepts as well as to meet current competency requirements.