The aim of the Curriculum Innovation project is to equip all undergraduate students in clinical fields with a mindset centred on quality improvement and patient safety, before they enter a healthcare setting. The CICC plans to incorporate the online open-school hosted by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) into undergraduate curriculum across Ontario. IHI's online open-school provides users with access to courses covering topics in QI and patient safety, including how to apply human factors principles, respond to types of errors, and implement a Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle. In August 2010, three courses were integrated into the third-year undergraduate curriculum at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine. On average, 80% of the third-year medical students considered the online courses effective in increasing their understanding of QI and patient safety in healthcare, relevant to their future clinical practice, and well-integrated into their academic curriculum.

The CICC plans to continue to integrate courses from the open-school into the Faculty of Medicine's four-year undergraduate program and evaluate its impact on students, both inside and outside of the classroom. We hope to spread this education initiative to all healthcare-related faculties across U of T, and create a standardized IHI online open-school integration model that can be adopted by universities across Ontario. This model will enable all students entering a clinical setting to share a common language and improve the quality of patient care together.