It has been estimated that at least 98,000 US adults die each year from medical errors; fewer people die from breast cancer, AIDS, or auto accidents. The costs associated with preventable medical errors exceed $17 billion. To help train scientists and practitioners to effectively reduce the likelihood of preventable patient harm, the University of Wisconsin–Madison offers the Graduate Certificate in Patient Safety. The certificate is supported by the School of Medicine and Public Health, School of Nursing, School of Pharmacy, and College of Engineering.
Objective: To increase student knowledge about how systems engineering and systems design can be used to identify, analyze and solve patient safety research and applied problems.
The graduate/professional certificate in patient safety is an interdisciplinary effort between the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, School of Nursing, School of Pharmacy, Department of Medical Physics, and Department of Population Health Sciences. Patient safety is of national and international importance and there is a shortage of people with expertise in the design of safe health care systems and technologies that can improve patient safety. Such expertise is important to physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other health care professionals, and engineers. The certificate in patient safety provides students with knowledge and skills in an array of topics necessary for the identification, analysis, and control of patient safety programs.
PREREQUISITES
- Accepted into a graduate or professional degree program
- Full- or part-time graduate student status
- One of the following three:
- A degree in a health-care-related field (that is, nursing, medicine, pharmacy, population health, public health, health care administration, health systems management, health care management), or
- Work experience in health care delivery, or
- Have taken a course in health care delivery such as I SY E 417 Health Systems Engineering, NURSING/S&A PHM/SOC WORK 105 Health Care Systems: Interdisciplinary Approach, LAW 940 Law and Contemporary Problems, POP HLTH 796 Introduction to Health Services Research.
The reason for the three options for prerequisites is to allow people with and without health care backgrounds to obtain the certificate.
IMPORTANT: students must choose one of the core faculty members listed below as an advisor. The advisor will determine if a student has met the pre-requisite requirement. Advisors must sign the section of the curriculum form titled “Patient Safety Certificate Application and Completion” in order for students to enroll.
HOW TO OBTAIN THE PATIENT SAFETY CERTIFICATE
- To complete the Patient Safety Certificate application, please complete a Patient Safety Declaration Form prior to enrollment of I SY E 699 Advanced Independent Study/I SY E 961 Graduate Seminar in Industrial Engineering.
- The semester of your graduation, please complete the Patient Safety Certificate Completion Form and obtain your advisor’s signature and upload to online system; Send email of confirmation of completion of certificate requirements to prpeterson@wisc.edu.
Any questions about this process can be directed to prpeterson@wisc.edu.
EXIT REQUIREMENTS
- GPA of 3.2 or above for the Patient Safety Certificate Curriculum courses (mandatory and elective combined).
- Completion of all mandatory and elective courses.
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| I SY E 699 | Advanced Independent Study 1 | 1 |
| or I SY E 961 | Graduate Seminar in Industrial Engineering | |
| PHARMACY/I SY E 608 | Safety and Quality in the Medication Use System | 3 |
| I SY E/MED PHYS 559 | Patient Safety and Error Reduction in Healthcare | 2 |
| I SY E/POP HLTH 703 | Quality of Health Care: Evaluation and Assurance | 3 |
| One of the following options: | 3 | |
| Human Performance and Accident Causation | ||
| Sociotechnical Systems | ||
| Organization and Job Design | ||
| Elective | 3 | |
| Total Credits | 15 | |
| 1 | To meet this requirement, students will be expected to work on an actual patient safety project with a health care delivery organization (in patient, out-patient, long-term care, home care, etc.) in which they will be involved in the design, measurement analysis, implementation and/ or evaluation of a patient safety project. All students who complete PHARMACY/I SY E 608 Safety and Quality in the Medication Use System below will automatically meet this requirement. An equivalent 1-credit Patient Safety Project may also be taken in lieu of either of these courses. |
ADVISORS
Students must choose one of the core faculty members listed below as an advisor:
- Pascale Carayon
Industrial & Systems Engineering - Michelle Chui
Pharmacy - David Mott
Pharmacy - Maureen Smith
Population Health Sciences - Bruce Thomadsen
Medical Physics - Doug Wiegmann
Industrial & Systems Engineering