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If you're looking for another credential that demonstrates your knowledge in healthcare quality, our online post-graduate certificate in healthcare quality and safety is a strong place to start.

Designed for nurses and healthcare professionals who have already earned their master's, the program can be completed in less than a year. The 4 courses cover critical concepts including healthcare quality and improvement, regulatory compliance and data evaluation.

Õ¬ÄÐƵµÀ is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE).

If you have some education and practical experience under your belt and would like to continue on this pathway, consider one of these 2 highly sought-after credentials in healthcare quality:

Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ)

The CPHQ is offered by the National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ) and was developed by the Healthcare Quality Certification Commission (HQCC). With over 12,000 recipients, it is widely considered the industry standard for healthcare quality.⁴

The exam consists of 140 multiple-choice questions that test aptitude in organizational leadership, health data analytics, performance and process improvement and patient safety.

The CPHQ exam is also unique in that there is no minimum education requirement to sit in.⁴

While exam readiness may be freely decided by the individual candidate, it is recommended that those sitting in for the exam have at least 2 years of professional healthcare experience prior to testing.

Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS)

The CPPS exam is offered by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and administered by the Certification Board for Professionals in Patient Safety (CBPPS).⁵

The test covers five core patient safety domains: culture, leadership, patient safety risks and solutions, measuring and improving performance, and systems thinking and design/human factors.

Unlike the CPHQ, eligible candidates must fulfill one of the following prerequisites before they can sit for the CPPS exam:⁴

• Bachelor's degree or higher plus 3 years of experience (includes time spent in clinical rotations and residency programs) in a healthcare setting or with a provider of services to the healthcare industry
• Associate degree or equivalent plus 5 years of experience (includes time spent in clinical rotations) in a healthcare setting or with a provider of services to the healthcare industry

While these topics are intertwined, there are some specific ways to differentiate healthcare quality and patient safety. Let's compare the two.

Patient safety

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines patient safety as a healthcare discipline that "aims to prevent and reduce risks, errors and harm that occur to patients during provision of health care."³

As healthcare systems become more mature and complex, the likelihood of human errors rise. Take, for example, the delivery of medications. Prescriptions go through a long chain of people and processes before getting to the patient; Doctors, pharmacists and nurses all play a role. But what happens if, say, two medications with similar packaging get swapped? Set procedures can help prevent these incidences from occurring.

Along with medication errors, WHO specifically notes a number of other patient safety situations, including:³

• Unsafe injection, transfusion or surgical care procedures
• Healthcare-associated infections
• Diagnostic and radiation errors
• Sepsis
• Venous thromboembolism (blood clots)

Standardized checks and balances can catch and correct human errors. But without a protective system in place, the damage could be dangerous and costly; in fact, preventable human error reportedly sets hospitals back nearly $42 billion annually.³

This is just one of the many reasons the World Health Organization (WHO) has named patient safety a "global health priority."³

Quality

The National Academy of Medicine – formerly Institute of Medicine (IOM) – defines health care quality as "the degree to which health care services ... increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge."⁶

In an effort to meet the highest industry standards, National Academy of Medicine categorizes 6 domains of health quality:⁶

1. Effectiveness. Providing care processes and achieving outcomes as supported by scientific evidence.
2. Efficiency. Maximizing the quality of a comparable unit of health care delivered or unit of health benefit achieved for a given unit of health care resources used.
3. Equity. Providing healthcare of equal quality to those who may differ in personal characteristics other than their clinical condition or preferences for care.
4. Patient centeredness. Meeting patients' needs and preferences and providing education and support.
5. Safety. Mitigating actual or potential bodily harm.
6. Timeliness. Obtaining needed care while minimizing delays.

At the end of the day, evaluating both quality and patient safety is critical. Consider the timely example of infection control practices, and how they can stop the spread of a new virus.

Patient safety can be improved through sterilization and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks, face shields, respirators, gloves and gowns. Diagnostics and vaccines, on the other hand, are tested for quality and accreditation to ensure they meet current standards as outlined by the greater medical community.

All of these efforts are ultimately designed to "flatten the curve" and keep patients, medical professionals and the entire global community safe.