How will the framework help educate health care workers about patient safety?

How can I provide feedback?

How has the framework been developed?

Who has been consulted during the development?

What is the educational role of the framework?

Who is the framework for?

What kind of learning will be involved?

How will learning programs be made available?

What is the theory behind the framework’s educational design?

How can I provide feedback?

The draft framework will be available for feedback from 12 November 2004.

How has the framework been developed?

The framework has been developed through a number of steps:

1. Thorough review of the literature and best practice regarding patient safety
2. Development of learning areas, framework levels and health care worker categories
3. Compilation of knowledge, skills and attitudes for the different levels and categories in the framework
4. Development of required knowledge and performance elements from the knowledge, skills and attitudes.

Who has been consulted during the development?

Feedback on the development of the draft framework has been provided by:

• The project reference group and steering committee (as detailed under project on this site)
• National roundtable
• National focus groups
• Targeted consultations.

A wider distribution of the draft framework across the health care sector will occur in early November 2004 for further feedback.

What is the educational role of the framework?

The framework aims to be a national educational guide to:

• What all health care workers need to know and understand about making their health care environment safe for patients
• How to apply this patient safety knowledge using the best possible skills and techniques, at all levels of the health care system
• How to communicate and behave in a way that effectively influences co-workers to adopt a patient-centred approach throughout their workplace
• Introducing management and administrative methods that can support patient safety across a health care organisation .

Each of these aims will be expanded in the required knowledge and performance elements in the framework.

Levels of knowledge and performance elements required by each category of health care worker:

• Category 1 – Health care workers who provide support services (e.g. volunteers, transport, catering, cleaning and reception staff) only require Level 1 knowledge and performance elements.
• Category 2 – Health care workers who provide direct clinical care to patients and work under supervision (e.g. ambulance officers, nurses, interns, residents and allied health workers) require both Level 1 and 2 knowledge and performance elements.
• Category 3 – Health care workers with managerial, team leader and/or advanced clinical responsibilities (e.g. nurse unit managers, catering managers, department heads, registrars, allied health managers and VMOs) require Level 1, 2 and 3 knowledge and performance elements.
• Category 4 – Clinical and administrative leaders with organisational responsibilities (e.g. CEOs, board members, directors of services and senior health department staff) only require Level 4 knowledge and performance elements.

Health care workers will be able to gain these knowledge and skills as part of either existing or new training and education programs.

Who is the framework for?

The framework will be designed for all workers within the health system including:

• Hospitals
  • catering and cleaning
  • office and reception
  • medical students
  • allied health
  • ambulance
  • patients’ carers
  • nurses
  • registrars
  • resident and visiting medical officers (RMOs, VMOs)
  • specialist clinicians
  • senior management and board members
• Community health
• Residential care
• General practice.

What kind of learning will be involved?

Each learning topic will focus on how health care workers, as individuals or in teams, can contribute to improving the safety of the patients in their care.

Learning how to do this will include:

• knowing and understanding what is needed to make a patient safe in a health care environment. For example:
  • Know the main types of errors in your workplace (Level 1 knowledge)
  • Know the models for understanding health care errors (Level 3 knowledge)
• becoming as skillful as possible in the best patient safety techniques. For example:
• Identify environmental factors that may contribute to errors (Level 1 skill)
• Identify the components of safe delivery of medications: ordering, transcribing, dispensing, delivering and administering (Level 2 skill)
• helping co-workers to accept patient safety as the most important aspect of their daily work. For example:
• Demonstrate an understanding of the multifactors causing errors and accidents in the workplace (Level 1knowledge)
• Show leadership by implementing organisational models of safety (Level 3 skill)
• contributing to the patient safety approach of the whole workplace or organisation. For example:
• Know the different approaches to managing risks and errors
  (Level 4 organisational knowledge)
• Ensure that managers are able to identify workplace practices that are susceptible to errors (Level 4 organisational skill).

How will learning programs be made available?

The required knowledge and performance elements in the framework will be described in a way that will allow them to be included in existing training and education programs or for building new learning programs.

Existing programs that provide workplace accreditation or certification may include learning about patient safety as part of employment requirements.

Existing health care registration or licensing processes may require new patient safety training programs to be in place.

What is the theory behind the framework’s educational design?

The framework draws on its educational approach from the broadly accepted principles of adult learning.

Of particular importance is the need for practice-based learning. This means that what is to be learnt should be in the context of the workplace and invite contributions from an individual’s own workplace experience.

The framework is divided into 7 learning areas that are further subdivided into 22 learning topics (these are listed in full in Have your say on this site).

The framework is designed to be flexible and can be used to develop curricula, competency-based training programs and other safety and quality initiatives.

Within each learning topic you will find:

• The rationale.
• The framework setting out the levels of knowledge and performance required for each category of health care worker (see below). Each level of knowledge and performance builds on the previous level.
• The development document derived from the literature and containing the background information used to create the framework.

The development document identifies learning across the traditional learning domains of knowledge, skills, behaviours and attitudes. This helps learners and educators to think about the best way to deliver and respond to learning programs.

The development document uses structured curriculum matrix, based around seven key patient safety learning areas. This allows both learners and educators to look up which pieces of learning are most relevant for each category of health care worker.

The required knowledge and performance elements in the framework will be described in terms of performance outcomes. This helps learners and educators to be clear about whether they can demonstrate if learning has been successful.

The framework aims to integrate learning requirements across all levels of the health care system, with particular emphasis on the organisational or managerial level. This will enable managers to support and positively reinforce individual and team learning in the key areas of patient safety.

Back to top of page