Quality improvement and patient safety (QIPS) is an essential component of medical practice through identifying and addressing areas for improvement, preventing medical errors, reducing healthcare costs, and enhancing clinical outcomes. The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada has defined QIPS as the “generic, robust, and action-oriented problem solving framework that supports [clinicians] in elevating their current state of practice, personal, or professional development.” Several Canadian medical organizations have highlighted QIPS as a core competency for graduating physicians, including the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the College of Family Physicians of Canada. In fact, the CanMEDS framework, a critical set of competencies which guides undergraduate and postgraduate medical curricula, has recently integrated QIPS into its key ‘leader’ competency. This requires graduating physicians to competently apply QIPS principles to improve patient care, contribute to a patient safety culture, analyze patient safety incidents to enhance care, and use health informatics to improve quality of care and patient safety. This position statement will explore two primary gaps within the existing undergraduate QIPS curriculum in MD Programs across Ontario:

1. The core quality improvement and patient safety (QIPS) undergraduate medical curriculum offers limited experiential training opportunities.
2. The current core curriculum does not adequately equip trainees with the knowledge and skills to approach QIPS problems using a health equity lens.