Developing future clinical leaders in patient safety: the Irish experience

It is 20 years since the Institute of Medicine advocated a national approach to improve care and patient safety. Patient safety infrastructure has greatly improved in certain countries. In Ireland, patient safety infrastructure is in ongoing development. To contribute to this, the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland/International Society for Quality in Healthcare Scholar in Residence Programme was launched in 2016. This programme aims to improve patient safety and develop a movement of future clinician leaders to drive improvements in patient safety and the quality of care.

Doctors in postgraduate training complete a year-long immersive mentorship. This involves monthly group meetings with key patient safety opinion makers, one-on-one mentorship, leadership courses, conference attendance and presentations. Each scholar undertakes a quality improvement (QI) project.

A QI project was associated with a decrease in caesarean section rates from 13.7% to 7.6% (p=0.0002) among women in spontaneous labour at term with a cephalic presentation. Other projects are ongoing.

Medical error, patient safety and QI must be addressed comprehensively at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. We believe the Irish mentorship programme will help to change the paradigm and improve patient safety.