Patient Safety project

The Patient Safety project was a Health Canada funded research project on governance and patient safety. The project was conducted by a multidisciplinary team of researchers operating through the Health Law Institute at Dalhousie University.

Over the course of this project, we examined the legal instruments used to create patient safety frameworks in Canada and in five other countries (Australia, Denmark, England, New Zealand, and the United States) and in two sectors within Canada (occupational health and safety and transportation). We also created a matrix to enable systematic reviews of patient safety frameworks created through the use of law. We then applied this matrix in conjunction with the comparative synthesis research described above. This allowed us to evaluate the current use of legal instruments to improve patient safety in Canada and to make recommendations for law reform and further research.

Download Patient Safety Law: From Silos to Systems - Final Report [1.1 MB] and Appendices [1.4 MB].