Quality, Patient Safety and Outcomes Research Certificate Program

The certificate program is designed for graduate students from the Johns Hopkins Schools of Public Health, Medicine, and Nursing and health-related professionals interested in quality, patient safety, and outcomes research. Those who complete the certificate program will gain competencies in quality, patient safety, and outcomes research; however the program does not provide training in conducting research.

Educational Objectives

Students completing the certificate program will be able to:

Quality

1. Describe several frameworks and theories for assessing and improving the quality of medical care;
2. Describe current key policy and programmatic areas in quality of care;
3. Understand how to assess quality of care for a medical condition; 
4. Describe key elements of published quality assessment and improvement studies;
5. Understand how to develop a workable quality improvement and evaluation plan.

Safety

1. Recognize the extent of problems in patient safety in medical care;
2. Describe the role of various systems and factors in creating safety and in causing errors and adverse events; 
3. Discuss problems and issues in measuring and reporting safety;
4. Demonstrate knowledge of the basics of conducting an incident investigation and disclosing an adverse event;
5. Design solutions to improve patient safety;
6. Understand the ethical, legal, and regulatory implications related to patient safety.

Patient Outcomes Research

1. Argue for the importance and challenges of using patient and consumer reported measures in research, clinical practice, and program evaluation;
2. Compare the different types of instruments available to measure health related quality of life; 
3. Critique the use of commonly used patient reported outcomes in specific applications;
4. Plan the development of a new questionnaire;
5. Understand the role of patient-centered outcomes research in improving health, including its place in the U.S. research portfolio; the importance of stakeholders in the research process, and policy implications related to implementation;
6. Identify study designs and methodologies unique to patient outcomes research.

Please visit our Academic Catalogue to see the full certificate curriculum requirements. Please also review the certificate completion requirements.