Our Canadian healthcare system is in dire need of innovation. Increasing healthcare costs, serious and recurring medical errors, along with rising incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases in our rapidly aging population have placed enormous and unprecedented pressures on our already overloaded healthcare systems.

Our Checklist On Medicine-PAtient Safety Study (COMPASS) project strives to design purposeful and evidence-based solutions that will help clinicians and healthcare organizations transform their practice of care. The key goal of our COMPASS project is to create a highly usable and efficient checklist that allows clinicians to follow a systematic and comprehensive approach to ensure a consistent standard of care is provided to patients on the General Internal Medicine wards. In particular, the items on the checklist aims to facilitate active review of important patient safety issues that include but not limited to: a) timely documentation and assessments of patient’s code status, venous thromboembolism, and urinary catheters insertions; b) adequate diagnosis and management of ambulation, delirium and bowel movements and c) appropriate follow up care plans for discharged patients who are at high risk for readmission which include referrals for Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) services and appointments with patients’ designated providers.

The design and implementation of the checklist on the General Internal Medicine wards will enable and encourage clinicians to abide with measures and practices that will reduce complications and errors, promote seamless transfer of care from the inpatient to ambulatory settings and prevent readmissions and re-hospitalizations. In doing so, we believe our innovative intervention will strengthen clinical safety practices, address the gaps in care transitions, and enhance the overall experience and quality of care for our complex patients in Canada.