Patient Safety in Everyday Practice

Patient safety in everyday practice: how errors arise, an open learning culture, safe identification, checklists, medication, hygiene, handovers.

Online self-study course – 9 modules, approx. 8 hours, at your own pace, with confirmation of participation after working through all modules. Sources in APA 7.

Using the Swiss cheese model, a close look at near misses and typical risks in the different work areas, practice teams learn about safeguards such as the four-eyes principle and consistently asking questions, safe communication and a lived safety culture.

This course is part of the e-learning flat rate – one year of access to all self-study courses.Unlock the flat rate →

📘 Background reading: Quality management in medical practices: what the Quality Management Directive requires of the practice team

Self-study without supervision, assignments or evaluation of learning progress by instructors; the voluntary self-reflection is for your own orientation only. Your confirmation of participation becomes available once you have marked all modules as done yourself.

What this course covers

1What patient safety is

2How errors arise

3An open learning culture

4Common risks in the practice

5Everyday safety measures: identity, checklists, asking questions

6Medication safety & hygiene in everyday practice

7Safe communication & handovers

8Learning from errors

9Safety culture in the team

Learning objectives

What you will learn

You can explain patient safety using the definition of the World Health Organization and the German Patient Safety Glossary, and you can explain the core idea of avoidable harm.

You can explain why errors are part of human action, and you can place the concept of error – a correct plan is carried out wrongly, or the plan itself is wrong – in its professional context.

You can explain the terms error culture and safety culture, and explain why the way errors are handled helps determine patient safety in the practice.

You can explain why certain areas of everyday practice are particularly error-prone, and you can apply the sources of patient harm named by the WHO to the outpatient practice.

You can explain why patient safety in everyday practice arises above all from many small, reliable measures, and classify these as safeguards.

You can explain the terms medication therapy safety and medication error as used in the Medication Therapy Safety Action Plan 2026–2029 and explain why patients are regarded as active partners in this.

You can explain why communication breakdowns are among the most important sources of avoidable harm and how to recognise a safe handover.

You can explain why errors and near misses are a valuable source of learning for the whole practice team and what a reporting and learning system (critical incident reporting system, CIRS) achieves.

9 modules

Self-study at your own pace

Confirmation of participation after working through all modules

Patient Safety in Everyday Practice