Faculty Educational Series

We turned our attention in 2020/21 to the development of an educational series that focuses on building faculty capability to lead and improve quality in primary care. Designed as a self-study series that mirrors the postgraduate learner-focused series, the faculty-focused series includes nine e-modules that integrate core content with relevant resources, references, videos, and active learning elements. The curriculum includes e-modules on traditional QI elements such as the Model for Improvement, measurement, patient safety as well as foundational concepts including patient engagement, health equity and leading change. The ninth e-module - the Faculty Guide, includes a collection of resources focused on organizing, facilitating, and assessing/evaluating application of quality improvement knowledge and skills with PGY1 family medicine residents.

This 1-credit per hour Self-Learning program has been certified by the College of Family Physicians of Canada for up to 6 Mainpro⁺ credits.

Improving quality in primary care: an educational series for faculty and teachers

Faculty educational series overview Preview the modules Register to access the modules

This educational material may be reproduced with the mutual understanding that materials and resources are for the sole purpose of family medicine resident/faculty education and with attribution provided according to the citation below. For all other uses, permission must be acquired from DFCM: please contact dfcm.quality@utoronto.ca.

Learning objectives

Designed to contribute to the goal of “Building Capability to Improve Quality in Primary Care”, the overall learning objectives of our faculty educational series are to:

Apply the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to effectively teach, role model, and facilitate clinical and educational activities focused on improving quality in primary care.
Demonstrate a commitment to improving quality for patients from an individual, team, organization and system perspective.
Advance quality through collaboration and engagement of our teams* to improve personal practice and contribute to collective improvements in practice at all levels of health care systems.
Apply the science of improvement, incorporating various forms of data, to improve practice effectiveness and the quality of care with a focus on improved equity, safety and patient engagement.

Citation & acknowledgements

Citation: Navsheer Gill, Patricia O’Brien, Melissa Witty, Noor Ramji, Carly Schenker, Susanna Fung, Zoe Wong, Colin Siu, Tara Kiran. Improving quality in primary care: an educational series for faculty and teachers. Quality and Innovation Program, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto; Toronto, Canada, 2021.

Acknowledgement: We would like to acknowledge Dr. Philip Ellison whose leadership enabled the design, development, and implementation of the inaugural quality improvement curriculum in 2011. Dr. Ellison’s vision of ‘advancing family medicine by living a quality culture’ continues to inspire our Program’s efforts to educate learners to improve quality in primary care.

We also wish to acknowledge our Quality Improvement Program Directors at our DFCM academic sites, who through their teaching excellence and effective role-modelling have influenced hundreds of family residents since 2011 to envision a future where improving quality knowledge and skills are core to effective practice.

A special thank you is offered to Ms. Olivia Neale for curriculum design and technical guidance; to Ms. Dana Arafeh, Dr. Noah Ivers, Dr. Ritika Goel, Dr. Thuynga Pham, Dr. John Maxted, and Dr. Margarita Lam-Antoniades for guidance on selecting and integrating content and references for the patient engagement, measuring for system performance, improving equity and patient safety e-modules; to Mr. Alexander Zsager for sharing the patient perspective; and to Ms. Marisa Schwartz for managing the many processes that comprise the development of a virtual curriculum.