This will provide core improvement concepts for students in the new Masters of Science in Improvement stream. Students will have varying experience with health care improvement and patient safety and will have different professional backgrounds. The fundamentals course will provide a solid baseline for future courses; an understanding of the prerequisite knowledge base; areas of focus (key themes) for the program; an understanding of critical quality and safety issues facing health care today, an appreciation of the research elements of the program and an introduction to statistical process controls used in improvement processes. Specifically the course provides an introduction to program themes related to quality improvement skills and capacity; the rate of uptake, spread, and sustainability of evidence-based quality improvement; leadership, innovation and change management skills; coordination and implementation of improvements across organization and between levels of health care.

Course content by module: all classes will combine didactic and small group interactive exercises, and guest lecturers will be invited to share expertise from the field for approximately one hour during most of the modules. This course will provide a framework for improvement science, and introduce key concepts that will be applied and expanded upon in subsequent courses in this master’s stream.

Objectives: 1) Describe the objectives and expectations of the MSc program. 2) Explain a conceptual framework for improvementApply this conceptual framework to a personal improvement plan. 3) Appreciate structural contributors to system qualityDescribe important features of measurement in improvement. 4) Understand the role of human factors in improvement. 5) Apply small-scale testing principles to improvement projects. 6) Analyze factors associated with successful implementation. 7) Critically appraise improvement studies. 8) Demonstrate skills in persuasive presentations. 9) Integrate all of these concepts to an improvement project protocol.