Maryland Patient Safety Center

Patient Safety Training

Patient safety is defined as “the absence of preventable harm to a patient and reduction of risk of unnecessary harm associated with health care to an acceptable minimum.” According to the World Health Organization, approximately one in every ten patients is harmed in health care and more than 3 million deaths occur annually due to unsafe care.  The Maryland Patient Safety Center convenes key stakeholders, provides education, and facilitates opportunities for networking and collaboration with the purpose of building workforce capacity to improve healthcare quality and patient safety.

Everyone plays a role in creating environments, processes and systems that support safe patient care.  MPSC will help to ensure that the tools for patient safety and quality are made available to a wide audience, including patient safety officers, healthcare leaders, as well as front-line nurses, physicians, staff, and other members of the care team.  Register for the courses and events below to learn implementable, effective, and practical applications for healthcare workers to improve patient safety systems and processes. 

Patient Safety Forums

Patient Safety Forums provide an opportunity to come together on key topics in patient safety, to learn, share and exchange best practices and  implementation challenges.  Forums include a one-hour presentation, followed by 30-minutes of facilitated discussion, and a post-event Maryland Patient Safety Center Learning in Action document.

Patient Safety Forums are open and FREE to MPSC members only and are held virtually 1:00 – 2:30pm EST.

 

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Additional events, webinars, forums, and protected roundtable discussions available in three high-priority areas of focus:

This presentation will focus on the impact of communication errors on organizations and patient safety. Benefits of standardizing care transition communication on patient safety culture will be described along with key research findings and proven strategies for large scale implementation. 

This three-day in-person Six Sigma Green Belt course is designed for healthcare professionals who are interested in process improvement.  Participants will develop a sound technical foundation in Six Sigma tools, and will learn and apply the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) improvement method. Each participant will develop a project that demonstrates understanding of the Six Sigma tools. Participants will complete the coursework, project, and exam necessary for Green Belt certification.

MPSC Members: $799    I    Non-Members: $1,500

Specimen identification and labeling errors can  put patients at risk of transfusion-related death, medication errors, misdiagnosis, and patient mismanagement. This webinar and group discussion is focused on mistakes related to specimen identification and labeling.   

Healthcare organizations are constantly evolving because of changes in reimbursement, new technology, regulatory requirements, and staffing levels. These modifications cause policies and procedures to change often, and in most cases, quickly. As a result, it is difficult to maintain consistency in processes and systems, which leads to variation. Often this variation results in increased failure risk.  During this full-day, in-person workshop, you will learn root cause analysis techniques to investigate those variances that cause near misses or sentinel events in order to minimize the possibility of future failures and thereby, improve care, treatment, and services provided by your organizations.

The Lean Sigma Black Belt course and certification is intended for Lean Six Sigma Green Belts who have demonstrated their knowledge initiating and completing at least one project.  In the Lean Sigma Black Belt course, these participants will gain further knowledge to lead efforts to reduce process variations and improve results. 
The Lean Six Sigma Black Belt course requires pre-requisites for participation.  Each interested participant must submit in at least two weeks prior to the scheduled course–and receive approval from the course instructor.
 
Submit proof of your Green Belt Certification to MPSC along with the detailed project details below.
    • Project Charter
    • Show Baseline Data, Benchmark or Target Data, Outcome and Process Metrics
    • Show Bar or line graph with baseline data, last three months data to show the progress with trend line. Also draw the target line.
    • Process Maps -Current and Future
    • Gap Analysis – identify gaps and probable solution(s)
    • Test of Changes / Pilot Runs in Bar Graphs / Line Graphs
    • Implementation Plan
    • Communication Plan
    • Also prepare a 40+ slides presentation to “Introduction to Lean Six Sigma”.
Once the above documentation has been received, reviewed and approved by the Lean Sigma Black Belt instructor, the participant will be provided the registration link. Approval is at the sole discretion of the Lean Sigma Black Belt instructor, who will maintain industry standards, and not be unreasonably withheld.

MPSC Members: $799    I    Non-Members: $1,500

Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS®) is an evidence-based set of teamwork tools, aimed at optimizing patient outcomes by improving communication and teamwork skills among health care professionals. Maryland Patient Safety Center is offering the Master Training 2-day in-person course with a train-the-trainer approach. This approach educates participants on the TeamSTEPPS® fundamentals content, provides them with resources for training others, and ensures that they gain the knowledge and training required to implement and coach the behaviors needed to achieve positive results. This course is taught by—and produces—Master Trainers. 

Registration Requirements 

A full team of three individuals is required; partial teams will not be able to register.  Registration requires the following information for each of your three or more team members: Name, Organization Name, Address, Phone, Email, Credentials, and position within the organization.  

Pre-Work 

The pre-work is designed to help you prepare for the 2-day onsite Master Training course. Furthermore, responses from your team’s pre-work will provide the faculty with key insight as to the needs of the class. Completing the pre-work will not only help you garner more from the training but will also help the faculty leverage their resources and expertise to tailor the curriculum to your needs. It is appropriate for your team to work together on this assignment and have one person submit it on the team’s behalf. Instructions on how to upload your pre-work will be forthcoming. 

Upon successful completion of the TeamSTEPPS® Master 

Training course, attendees will receive a Certificate of Completion

MPSC Members: $349    I    Non-Members: $749

*This will be a two-part class: June 3, 2025, In-person at MPSC and June 4, 2025, Virtual

MPSC operates a listserv for healthcare professionals with an interest in patient safety. The listserv offers a network for shared and experiential learning and is used by MPSC to share upcoming events and information specific to safety in this specialty. MPSC members may use the listserv to pose questions to the group in order to garner feedback, solutions, and gain consensus on topics related to quality care delivery, adverse events, and general patient safety policies and procedures. Please contact mpsc@marylandpatientsafety.org to be enrolled.