Teaching Patient Safety: Conference Proceedings and Consensus Statements of the Millennium Conference 2009

PURPOSE: The 2003 Institute of Medicine's report "Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality" argued for the education of health professionals in patient safety. In response to this call, a number of organizations and institutions have developed frameworks and curricula that provide the educational foundation essential for learning about patient safety. However, there is limited guidance on strategies for implementation of training programs in patient safety. SUMMARY: We convened the "Millennium Conference 2009: Patient Safety--Implications for Teaching in the 21st Century" to develop concrete approaches to teach patient safety in undergraduate and graduate medical education. We selected 9 medical schools through a competitive application process to participate as school teams. We led attendees through structured discussions on three topics: (a) promoting a culture of patient safety, (b) implementing patient safety content into preexisting curricula, and (c) providing faculty development. School teams also met to refine their current local initiatives in patient safety teaching. CONCLUSIONS: A group of committed stakeholders gathered to collectively consider strategies for the integration of patient safety education into undergraduate and graduate medical education. The recommendations from this conference proceed from consensus reached by the participants.