This elective experience is designed to empower medical students to be co-agents of change in the health system. By participating in this elective, students will be active members of interprofessional teams in the health care system examining key elements of health systems science in daily practice and contribute to improvements in quality and safety.

Throughout the semester, students will learn from and participate in activities with team members in the classroom and at hospital sites.  With the addition of Health Systems Science as part of the core curriculum for medical students, and a key area that residency programs emphasis in training, the quality auditing experience component of this elective incorporates learning about the system and structure of healthcare and its processes as well as an understanding of how those processes can be improved. 

Class sessions will primarily be held on Thursday afternoons during the spring semester.

The goals for the elective are for students to:

• Understand how healthcare structure allows for coordination and organization of healthcare processes;
• Describe how reviewing a given process within healthcare identifies gaps that may lead to patient harm or affect healthcare delivery efficiency or satisfaction and the role of the quality team within an organization to escalate and improve identified processes;
• Understand the correlation between process auditing and serious safety event Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
• Participate and speak to internal action plan development once a process gap has been identified.

Prerequisites: MS1 in good academic standing

Semester: Spring semester

Number of students: 20

Course Director: Kenneth Snyder, MD, PhD; Jennifer Meka, PhD; Kristen Bies