Newsletter
The Patient Safety Ambassadors Programme
Excellent Patient Safety training of the European Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care for all health care workers
Safer Care to Save Lives
Together with healthcare leaders and practitioners, the ESAIC is dedicated to leading the way in patient safety and ensuring the best care for every patient. Recently, together with delegates from the European Board of Anaesthesiologists, we worked on an update of the Helsinki Declaration on Patient Safety in Anaesthesiology. With the update published in the Helsinki Declaration on Patient Safety in Anaesthesiology 2.0, we align current topics on patient and health care workers’ safety to current knowledge.
The Declaration builds on earlier statements about safety and quality of care. It represents a shared European opinion of what is currently worthwhile and practical to improve patient safety in anaesthesiology. Anaesthesiology shares responsibility for quality and safety in Anaesthesia, Intensive Care, Critical Emergency Medicine and Pain Medicine, including the whole perioperative process, and in many other situations inside and outside the hospital where patients are at their most vulnerable.
The Declaration recommends practical steps that all anaesthesiologists who are not already using them should include in their own practice. These are relatively straightforward and, where they are currently being used, have a track record of improving patient safety. The Declaration was endorsed by EBA and ESAIC.
The ESAIC Patient Safety and Quality Committee has developed a Patient Safety education project over the last years, the Patient Safety Ambassadors programme. This comprehensive package of Patient Safety education is for anaesthesiologists, healthcare professionals, hospital management and patients. The Patient Safety Training Programme is a comprehensive training path designed to provide key knowledge on patient safety in acute settings, including intensive care, anaesthesiology, perioperative care and emergency settings. It is built on the overarching principles of the Helsinki Declaration on Patient Safety in Anaesthesiology.
Our vision is that every acute care setting health care provider in Europe will receive and be certified in ESAIC patient safety training as part of their continuing education program. Every patient and relative will have access to an education program to participate in their own safety.
This package includes the following content:
- The ESAIC Essential Patient Safety Course, a series of eLearning modules for the those starting with interest in patient safety
The EPSC is built on the Helsinki Declaration’s overarching principles on patient safety. Through the 5 modules of the training programme, participants will learn the key dimensions of the Helsinki declaration, understand issues related to system complexity and human factors and train in the use of common quality and safety improvement tools. The programme is a stand-alone course designed to provide all the necessary theoretical content required for the Advanced Patient Safety Course (APSC) and the Patient Safety and Quality Masterclass (PSQ Masterclass).
The programme includes a series of five different lectures, featuring videos, podcasts, theoretical content and interactive exercises and scenarios. It also includes updated reading on the topic and a Short Auto-Evaluation test that closes each of the modules. The Essential Patient Safety Course (EPSC) is held as an online course all year round. The programme covers a wide range of safety and quality-related topics. It will enable participants to learn specific key concepts and practise quality and safety improvement strategies that they can apply in their own clinical settings.
- The ESAIC Advanced Patient Safety Course, a certified course for those more advanced in their understanding of patient safety topics
The ESAIC Advanced Patient Safety Course is a live 1.5-day course to teach patient safety tools that can be used in acute settings. We offer modern teaching that incorporates interactive group work and innovative 360-degree videos of key scenarios, followed by debriefing, to bring examples of critical situations to life. Topics covered include interactive settings for safety culture, patient safety tools, human factors, incident reporting and learning from errors, systems analysis, how to analyse a safety incident, crisis management, teamwork, communication and situation awareness, as well as patient advocacy and patient safety advocacy.
The APSC is provided as a cascade training programme by ESAIC in collaboration with national training structures.
Healthcare professionals attending 100% of the ASPC and who pass the course assessment will hold the ESAIC Advanced Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Patient Safety Certificate. The APSC is aimed at all healthcare professionals, patients and stakeholders interested in patient safety in acute settings, including Intensive Care, Perioperative Care, Anaesthesia, Emergency Care and other settings where acute patients are treated. Currently, more than 10 countries in Europe have already adopted the APSC in their own countries, translated into their own language. In those countries, previous participants, who have taken a Teach-the-Teacher course are giving this course using the material (case scenario, videos, PowerPoint presentations), provided by ESAIC.
A digital student manual is available as a guidebook through the live program of the APSC. This book provides support as immediate pre-reading and course documentation including the rationale for the course content, concept highlights and working sheets for the 360º workshops. Student books can be translated into national languages by the national society if needed.
Quotes from former participants:
“ Fantastic course, a must for every anaesthesiologist. Should be in the basic package of the training.”
“ I highly recommend taking on this course as it gives us a condensed perspective on patient safety as well as allows us to exchange experiences among different healthcare systems and countries.“
“Excellent course with high-quality education materials – the videos were interesting and well-made, and the manual is superb. Loved the discussion on the course with colleagues from other countries – there was a real sense of openness and honesty from all participants.”
- The ESAIC Patient Safety and Quality Masterclass
The Patient Safety and Quality Masterclass is an advanced scientific workshop dedicated to learning principles and practice of patient safety, clinical risk management and quality of care.
It is an intensive 2.5-day workshop built on the principle of maximising interaction between attendees through small-group learning and sessions that require active participation. While we are generally able to cover a wide variety of safety and quality-related topics, we have a diverse faculty selection that enables participants to focus on particular interest topics in their clinical settings and tailor their needs to maximise their learning benefit.
This course is aimed at anaesthesiologists, nurse anaesthetists, other perioperative clinicians/staff and hospital administrators who already have some experience in patient safety and are clearly motivated to become patient safety and quality champions in their departments. The focus is on perioperative patient safety.
The Patient Safety and Quality Masterclass have a different programme to the Advanced Patient Safety Course. It provides a deeper look into Patient Safety issues for participants of different levels, including those who are new to the subject. The aim is to establish a firmer foundation in the different areas and topics that make up the field of Patient Safety. Topics covered in this masterclass include human error, human factors, safety science, psychology, drift, cognitive aids, teamwork, resilience engineering, patients’ perspective, quality indicators, evidence-based patient safety, communication and connection, critical incident debriefing and analysis, communication with patient relatives, as well as second victims.
Quotes from recent participants:
“This is the best master class/ work shop I have been to. I find it very relevant to my work, both in research, as a leader and as a clinician. It was a very good mix of participants with different levels of experience. It is also the first time I have experienced the patient’s perspective in reality in a workshop and found this very inspirational. The only criticism I have, is that this class should have been announced much earlier.”
“This program was exactly what I was looking for in a safety masterclass – a good mix of theory and its practical applications. The faculty was knowledgeable, and discussions with them and the other participants were enlightening. The use of clinical cases for putting the theory into practice was very useful and kept the flow going throughout the course.”
The European Patient Safety Ambassadors Programme
The ESAIC created a pathway to leverage all the knowledge, material and resources to boost Patient Safety culture in Europe. This includes raising awareness of Patient Safety, creating and sharing content, building networks of experts, gathering feedback from participants and continuously improving the material, to ultimately extend its reach and boost its impact. Therefore, ESAIC certifies those who have successfully completed the ESAIC blended learning path on Patient Safety, including the Essential Patient Safety Course (online), the Advanced Patient Safety Course, and the Patient Safety and Quality Masterclass, earning the title of ESAIC Ambassador in Patient Safety. During Euroanaesthesia 2025 in Lisbon/Portugal, the first 24 ambassadors have been congratulated and certified. With the acquired knowledge and skills, the ambassadors will contribute to the enhancement of patient care and safety.
ESAIC looks forward to also certifying the new ambassadors in patient safety during the next annual congress in Rotterdam/the Netherlands.
Author: Benedikt Preckel, Chair of the Patient Safety and Quality Committee, ESAIC Anaesthesiologist, Amsterdam UMC location AMC, The Netherlands
