Creating Change: An Experiential Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Curriculum for Medical Students

Introduction: Medical students are the future drivers of change in health care. The AAMC encourages quality improvement and patient safety (QI/PS) education. Unfortunately, many schools do not have a formal QI/PS curriculum. To offer the patient-centered, safe, evidence-based, and high-value care patients deserve, students will be expected to have both knowledge of and experience in QI/PS. This extracurricular experiential QI/PS curriculum is designed to prepare medical students for this role. Methods: The curriculum includes six monthly didactic and work-group sessions that cover QI/PS fundamentals and facilitate the design and implementation of student projects. Results: ordering, reduced discordance between documented and true intraoperative wound classification, and increased the quantity and quality of patient sleep. Responding "Agree" or "Strongly Agree," 80.9% of students felt their practice would change due to this experience, and 96.5% planned on participating in QI/PS in the future. Four students volunteered to continue as student leaders. Many students (96.5%) felt their experience was good or very good. Discussion: This ready-to-implement curriculum offers medical students an opportunity to obtain the knowledge and experience necessary to participate meaningfully in QI/PS now and throughout their careers.