The PATSAFE consortium has developed and implemented a training programme for patient safety research to achieve the objectives. This unique and comprehensive curriculum covers relevant areas in patient safety research and consists of three modules:
1) Fundamentals in patient safety:
* The science of patient safety and the burden of unsafe care,
* Methods of analysis of adverse events and improvement of patient safety (I),
* Methods of analysis of adverse events and improvement of patient safety (II),
* Implementation science and patient safety improvement.
2) Patient safety culture and patient involvement in patient safety research:
* Patient safety culture,
* Patient involvement in patient safety and patient safety research,
* Validation techniques of measurement tools to study patient safety culture in healthcare settings in Estonia,
* An introduction to literature reviews.
3) Development of soft skills to support the implementation of patient safety research in practice:
* Research proposal,
* Research ethics,
* Intellectual property rights and commercialization in research,
* Human resources and change management in clinical settings,
* An introduction to qualitative research.
In total, 82 participants – academic staff of the ICM-UT, ESRs and health care workers – received the course certificates. As a result of the training programme, four PhD students are doing their research in patient safety at the University of Tartu.
Based on the PATSAFE training programme, new e-courses for the healthcare staff in Estonia were developed; one training course has been implemented into the Master’s programme of nursing sciences at the University of Tartu as a whole. We have published papers in peer-reviewed journals and presented the results at several international conferences.
An important milestone in the development and sustainability of patient safety research at the University of Tartu is the institutional patient safety research and development strategy for the University of Tartu. Two European proposals have been jointly prepared and submitted, and one has been funded: “Improving quality and patient safety in surgical care through Standardisation and harmonization of perioperative care in Europe” (SAFEST- Grant agreement ID: 101057825). Thus, the partners will continue their collaboration in a new consortium.
To reach the target groups, different channels have been used to disseminate and exploit the project results like publications in peer-reviewed journals, presentations in international conferences and the project final conference, the project website, social media, and local media.
