Quality improvement and patient safety (DRAFT)

The field of patient safety is the coordinated effort to prevent harm, caused by the process of health care itself, from occurring to patients. ​

We aim to determine the frequency, burden and preventability of healthcare associated harm in primary and emergency care settings, and to develop and implement interventions to improve patient safety in priority areas.​

We host a team of health services researchers and academic clinicians with expertise for:

• investigating the frequency and avoidability of significant harm in healthcare, with particular expertise in primary care, secure environments and end-of-life care contexts
• methodological innovation for identifying, structuring and sharing learning from patient safety incidents within (national) and between countries (international), including the development of classification systems and taxonomy
• evaluating the development and implementation of interventions using mixed methods to minimise harm to patients in health and social care settings.

Current projects

Collaborations

We host a collaboration with other Cardiff University schools called the Welsh Ergonomics and Safer Patients Alliance (WESPA), an interdisciplinary group of researchers (Cardiff Business School, School of Engineering, School of Dentistry) and clinicians undertaking research and service evaluation to enable innovation and implementation of practices to improve patient safety in healthcare.

We also collaborate closely with the Opthalmic Public Health Group at the School of Optometry and Vision Sciences.

Researchers

Honorary staff