Fraser Health is advancing patient safety by building Compassionate Quality Practice Environments, where health care professionals have the support they need to provide safe, compassionate, competent and ethical care.
Fraser Health has a longstanding commitment to safe, person-centred care. Through a Compassionate Quality Practice Environment (CQPE) approach, Fraser Health is building a culture of compassion, quality and safety in every care setting. This involves partnering with patients and families to embed best safety practices—an essential collaborative effort to build a safety culture where people feel empowered to receive and provide the best care possible.
An important part of the work is aligning this approach with patient safety goals. The priority practices of Compassionate Quality Practice Environments such as mobility, handover and handoff, strongly tie into the patient safety priorities. These practices help minimize preventable harm for patients including pneumonia, sepsis, hospital-acquired urinary tract infections and delirium.
In addition to this work, some of the other focus areas include:
- Advancing Indigenous cultural safety and quality through CQPE initiatives.
- Supporting psychological health and safety for staff and medical staff.
- Implementing minimum nurse to patient ratio strategies to reduce workload and enable attentive and comprehensive care.
“Our teams are deeply committed to creating compassionate environments where people feel cared for, and where staff are supported to do their best work. I am continually inspired by the dedication of our teams and the positive difference their efforts make in the quality of care and the experience of that care for our patients, clients and families,” said Dermot Kelly, president and CEO, Fraser Health.
Fraser Health supports B.C.'s Patient Safety Strategy: Your Care, Our Commitment—the first province-wide, system-level plan of its kind in Canada. The five-year strategy outlines a coordinated vision for safer care and aligns closely with the values and initiatives already guiding Fraser Health’s work.
The strategy connects organizations, initiatives and people across B.C. to amplify collective impact and accelerate improvement. Over the coming months, Fraser Health will work closely with Health Quality BC to align existing initiatives, share learnings and continue advancing a culture of safety and quality for everyone we serve.
