The end of summer, the start of the school year, the leaves are starting to turn colors, and we are getting ready for our 21^st annual Northwest Patient Safety Conference on October 15-16, 2024. Presented by Washington Patient Safety Coalition, Health Quality British Columbia, and Oregon Patient Safety Commission, our conference includes 14-hour long sessions, entirely virtual, over two half-days. Our theme this year is “Safe Patient Care: It Takes All of Us.” At its most basic level, health care boils down to one-on-one interactions between people. The conference will focus on what patients and providers can do together to improve safety, quality, and outcomes.

If your organization would like to support this important work, and keep this free for patients, families, and students, please fill out our online sponsorship form here.

The conference keynote will be given by Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD. Dr. Ofri is the author of six books about life in medicine including “When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error”, “What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine”, and “What Patients Say; What Doctors Hear”.

Live presentations are recorded and available for a year, so attendees can watch sessions they may have missed at their leisure. Topics include:

• Workforce civility: Explore civility, incivility, and other forms of workplace aggression and the competencies to foster healthy, productive work environments.
• Intersex management: Understand children’s rights and the meaning of medical harm in the context of pediatric genital surgeries.
• Cognitive interviewing: The role of investigative interviews in fact-finding, and practical advice for the investigations in healthcare settings.
• Two sessions on artificial intelligence: a discussion of potential pitfalls of applying AI for clinical diagnosis and learn the ethical and legal challenges around AI implementation in health care.
• Shared decision making: Learn how Massachusetts General Hospital built a culture of shared decision making. Discuss patient decision aids to enhance shared decision making from Confluence Health, University of Colorado and the University of Ottawa.
• British Columbia’s Patient Voices Network: a community of patients, families, and caregivers who team up with health care professionals to improve health care in BC.
• Long term care: Learn about an innovative approach to quality improvement that results in higher morale, better retention, fewer workplace injuries, falls and medication errors.
• Racism and medical education: Understand systemic racism in health professions education and its impact on student experiences and patient quality and safety.

Dates: October 15 & 16, Time: 7:45 a.m. – 1 p.m. Pacific.

Fees:

• Healthcare professionals and anyone seeking continuing educational credits, $85.
• Patients, their families, and students, Free
• Discounts are offered for registrants with CPHQ, CPPS, and BCPA professional certifications.

CE Credits: Nursing Contact Hours, CPHQ, CPPS, CPHRM, and BCPA.

Registration questions? Contact wpsc@qualityhealth.org