Academy of Quality Improvement Sciences

About

Engage in a journey of learning as AHS pursues system level transformation toward high quality, safe, reliable clinical services and excellence in patient and family experience.

The Academy of Quality Improvement Sciences (AQuIS) offers various certificate programs to AHS staff and external learners related to patient safety and quality improvement. Each learning stream should be taken in the recommended order to help you build a strong foundation as you work towards the completion of a certificate.

Visit AQuIS Curriculum to learn more about each course.


Learning Streams

The Academy of Quality Improvement Sciences (AQuIS) offers a variety of educational streams to support you with patient safety and quality improvement courses. Visit AQuIS Curriculum to view the course outlines.


Registration

To sign up for these courses, navigate to MyLearningLink on Insite and search QPSE. External learners can email us at qpse@ahs.ca for assistance with course registration.

Patient Safety is the avoidance of unexpected or unintended harm to people during the provision of healthcare. At AHS, we place safety and quality improvement at the centre of all of our decisions.

Visit the Quality & Patient Safety Education playlist to view more videos.

Contact

For more information or questions email us at qpse@ahs.ca. This mailbox is monitored continually during work hours.


What's New

PPS100 A Culture of Patient Safety for Asynchronous/Facilitated Study & PQI100 Foundations of Quality Improvement for Asynchronous / Facilitated Study are now being offered, allowing learners to complete them independently within a set timeframe. No Zoom or in-person sessions are required. The courses are facilitated online by a QPSE Senior Consultant via Google Classroom and are accredited by the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons.

QPSE has a new Certificate Program (four courses) in the AQuIS Foundational Quality Improvement Curriculum. Module 1 - QI Opportunities now available. Module 2 - Developing Data Literacy for QI available April 2025. Module 3 – Sharing an Improvement Idea available August 2025.

Register on MyLearningLink.

External learners can email qpse@ahs.ca.


Patient Safety - Foundational

The Foundational Patient Safety Stream consists of five courses.

Patient Safety - Level 1

The Patient Safety Certificate - Level 1 is made up of the following three courses.

  • PPS100 A Culture of Patient Safety is the pre-requisite course for both patient safety certificate levels. It reviews fundamental patient safety concepts that impact an emerging mindfulness of a patient safety culture in a healthcare system. Alternative Option: This course is offer via asynchronous delivery.
  • PPS101 Communication for Patient Safety explores how effective multidisciplinary communication contributes to the prevention of patient harm and adverse events.
  • PPS102 Teamwork for Patient Safety explains the elements of effective teamwork within healthcare and how to address challenges that face healthcare teams in their pursuit of positive healthcare outcomes.

It is recommended that you complete the Patient Safety Certificate - Level 1 before taking Level 2.


Patient Safety - Level 2

The Patient Safety Certificate - Level 2 is made up of two project-based courses. If you consider yourself a new or emerging leader, both certificates are strongly recommended.

  • PPS103 Patient Safety Risks & Hazards introduces the learner to risk concepts and principles. The course explores how to best identify and respond to risks and hazards within a healthcare organization.
  • PPS104 Advancing Patient Safety Improvement builds on the content from PPS103 and explains the concepts of prioritization, metrics, measures and data which play an integral role in the recommendations for improvement. The course will guide the learner through the process of using real time patient safety measures and metrics to analyze patient safety data in order to write recommendations for potential safety improvement initiatives.

Patient Safety - Intermediate

The Intermediate Patient Safety Stream is subject matter content that is applied. The content is related at a leadership level and is designed to guide the leader in their understanding of AHS operations.

  • Communicating Unexpected Outcomes - Disclosure Skills for Teams provides insight into the patient and family experience following an unexpected outcome and enhances communication skills for disclosing with honesty, empathy, and respect. This course is the pre-requisite for the Leaders course.
  • Communicating Unexpected Outcomes - Disclosure Skills for Leaders provides healthcare leaders the opportunity to practice post-analysis disclosure conversations through simulated exercises and provides the knowledge and skills to support healthcare providers.

Quality Improvement - Foundational

The Foundational Quality Improvement Stream consists of two foundational courses. Ideally these should be taken after the Patient Safety Certificate - Level 2 courses, which establish an important foundation for quality improvement initiatives.

The Quality Improvement Certificate is made up of the following course.

  • PQI100 Foundations of Quality Improvement is designed to challenge the learner to understand quality improvement within the healthcare system and to be able to explore concepts and principles within the context of the quality improvement process. Alternative Option: This course is offer via asynchronous delivery.
  • PQI101 Developing Knowledge & Skills in Quality Improvement is a series consisting of separate modules. These asynchronous/facilitated courses are developed using Google Classroom allowing the learner to complete it at their own pace, within 4 weeks, with guidance from a facilitator.
  • PQI101 Developing Knowledge & Skills in Quality Improvement Module 1 - QI Opportunities our goal is recognizing or finding QI opportunities.
  • PQI101 Developing Knowledge & Skills in Quality Improvement Module 2 - Developing Data Literacy for QI our goal is to understand that in healthcare we use data to determine the quality of care we are providing, or receiving, and how our service is performing.
  • PQI101 Developing Knowledge & Skills in Quality Improvement Module 3 - Sharing an Improvement Idea our goal is to give you ideas and tools to share your improvement idea with others.

Accreditation

The AQuIS Curriculum is approved and accredited by both the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) as outlined below.

College of Physicians of Canada (CFPC): Continuing Professional Development (CPD)  

  • PPS100 A Culture of Patient Safety: This 1 credit-per-hour Group Learning Program has been certified for up to 6 Mainpro+ credits.
  • Communicating Unexpected Outcomes - Disclosure Skills for Teams:  This 3 credits-per-hour Group Learning Program has been certified for up to 18 Mainpro+ credits.
  • Communicating Unexpected Outcomes - Disclosure Skills for Leaders: This 3 credits-per-hour Group Learning Program has been certified for up to 12 Mainpro+ credits.

Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC): Maintenance of Certification Program (MOC)

  • Foundations of Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Program
    This activity is an Accredited Self-Assessment Program (Section 3). You may claim a maximum of 36 hours. (6 hours per course)
    • PPS100 A Culture of Patient Safety: 6 hours 
    • PPS101 Communication for Patient Safety: 6 hours
    • PPS102 Teamwork for Patient Safety: 6 hours
    • PPS103 Patient Safety Risks & Hazards: 6 hours
    • PPS104 Advancing Patient Safety Improvement: 6 hours
    • PQI100 Foundations of Quality Improvement: 6 hours
  • PQI101 Developing Knowledge & Skills in Quality Improvement.
    This activity is an Accredited Self-Assessment Program (Section 3). You may claim a maximum of 12 hours (4 hours per course).
    • Module 1 - QI Opportunities: 4 hours
    • Module 2 - Developing Data Literacy for QI: 4 hours
    • Module 3 - Sharing an Improvement Idea: 4 hours
  • Communicating Unexpected Outcomes - Disclosure Skills for Teams
    This activity is an Accredited Simulation Activity (Section 3). You may claim a maximum of 3.75 hours. (1.75 hours (Section 1) & 2 hours (Section 2))
  • Communicating Unexpected Outcomes - Disclosure Skills for Leaders
    This activity is an Accredited Self-Assessment Program (Section 3). You may claim a maximum of 2.75 hours.