Achieving safe care: Accreditation Canada releases its patient safety strategy for 2012-2014

(Ottawa – May 3, 2012) When it comes to health care, safety and quality are interrelated. With that in mind, Accreditation Canada has released Patient Safety Strategy Phase 3: Achieving Safe Care. The strategy describes how Accreditation Canada will continue contributing to improving patient safety in Canada over the next three years.

Key actions in the strategy include: 

• Advancing the accreditation program requirements to increase health system safety and quality by reinforcing the key role of leadership, increasing the focus on client-centred care and involvement, further promoting and measuring risk management and quality improvement, enhancing the evaluation of health care information transfer, and strengthening infection prevention and control requirements 
• Developing patient safety resources for surveyors 
• Collaborating to generate new knowledge and research on patient safety 
• Developing new and strengthening existing partnerships to improve safety and quality across Canada’s health care system

Patient Safety Strategy Phase 3: Achieving Safe Care further positions the accreditation program to foster knowledge exchange and translation, networking, and partnerships that will improve safety nationally and internationally. “It is an important step in continuing the momentum to improve quality care,” says Wendy Nicklin, President and CEO of Accreditation Canada. “Achieving Safe Care is a blueprint for Accreditation Canada’s ongoing contribution to safer quality health care for all Canadians.”

The strategy was developed in partnership with a multitude of organizations and groups across the country, such as the Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI), the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), and the Health Quality Councils. Input from the National Patient Safety Roundtable was a key source of guidance in its refinement and ensured alignment with priorities of health care jurisdictions and organizations.

Phase 1 of the patient safety strategy, released in 2003, included a series of key objectives. Most notably was the development of Required Organizational Practices (ROPs), which are essential practices that organizations must have in place to enhance patient/client safety and minimize risk. Phase 2 was released in 2007 and highlighted the prominent role of patient safety in accreditation and efforts to support organizations to build patient safety capacity and meet the requirements for ROPs. With the release of Qmentum in 2008, the Patient Safety Culture Tool became an integral component of the program, and Governance and Leadership standards that included substantive criteria regarding patient safety responsibilities were issued.

Accreditation Canada is a not-for-profit organization that accredits health organizations in Canada and around the world. Its comprehensive accreditation program uses evidence-based standards and a rigorous peer review process to foster ongoing quality improvement. Accreditation Canada has been helping organizations improve health care quality and patient safety for more than 50 years. 

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