Characteristics of quality and patient safety curricula in major teaching hospitals

The authors recently discovered 2 quality and patient safety curricula for internal medicine and general surgery residents in major teaching hospitals: an infrequent formal curriculum developed by the university and a positive informal curriculum found in the teaching hospital. A hidden curriculum was postulated. These data were gathered through applied qualitative research methodology. In this article, curricular characteristics of the formal, informal, and hidden curricula are described and analyzed. Themes evaluated were planning, delivery, evaluation, drivers, responsible entity, and resources. The data show different curricular characteristics in each theme, especially for the formal and informal curricula. Understanding curricular characteristics represents the next step in understanding the environments of resident quality and safety learning, especially in the academic hospital setting. Aligning the formal and informal curricula as well as leveraging all curricula could improve educational venues for quality and safety and institutional clinical performance, and promote a learning health care system.