Patient safety and medicines
Measuring, testing and sustaining better, fairer care, with audit that meets your recertification requirements and makes a difference
Registered health practitioners in Aotearoa New Zealand: doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists and oral health practitioners, pharmacists, paramedics, physiotherapists and other allied health professionals, including those completing an audit for recertification or leading improvement projects.
Structured learning and a written reflection to show insight after a complaint, an investigation or a responsible authority inquiry.
Focused learning on a core standard of practice, with a certificate and reflection for your portfolio.
This course teaches the practical methods of quality improvement and clinical audit as they apply in Aotearoa New Zealand. You will learn to set improvement aims, use the Model for Improvement and Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles, choose outcome, process and balancing measures, read run charts and control charts, and design a clinical audit with evidence-based criteria, sound sampling and lawful handling of health information. It draws on Te Tāhū Hauora Health Quality & Safety Commission data tools such as the Quality and Safety Markers and the Atlas of Healthcare Variation, the National Ethics Advisory Committee's standards on quality improvement, the Code of Rights and the recertification requirements of the responsible authorities.
It is written for registered health practitioners in every setting: doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists and oral health practitioners, pharmacists, paramedics, physiotherapists and other allied health professionals, in hospitals, general practice, aged residential care, community services, pharmacies and private practice. It suits practitioners who must complete an audit for recertification, those leading or joining improvement projects, and those who need to show insight and change after a complaint, an HDC recommendation or a concern from a responsible authority.
New Zealand expects continuous improvement from services and practitioners, and expects it to reduce inequity, not just raise averages. Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022, Ngā Paerewa and professional standards on cultural safety all require improvement work that partners with Māori, patients and whānau. Each section uses New Zealand case examples across the professions and ends with a knowledge check.
10 sections · 24 lessons · 3 hours (estimated) · 20-question final assessment
Final assessment
20scenario-based questions
Certificate of completion
A certificate of completion for your learning portfolio.
The course includes a structured reflective account template: guided prompts to record what you learned, how you will apply it and how the change will show in your practice. It gives you written evidence of insight after a concern, and a ready record for your CPD portfolio.
Write it in your own words and leave out anything that could identify a patient, a colleague or a case. If you have an open complaint or case, talk to your adviser before reflecting on it in writing.
It teaches you to design one: evidence-based criteria, targets, defined exceptions, a reproducible sample and lawful handling of health information. Doctors in general scope, for example, need one medical audit a year through Inpractice. Whether a particular audit meets requirements is decided by your programme, not by us.
Clinical audit measures practice against agreed criteria; quality improvement tests changes, often in small Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles, to find what makes care better. The course also separates both from quality assurance and shows how audit findings feed improvement work, and when to use each.
Yes. You learn to choose outcome, process and balancing measures with clear operational definitions and to interpret run charts and control charts, so you can tell real improvement from normal variation before you claim success or abandon a change. HQSC data tools are used as worked examples.
The course applies the National Ethics Advisory Committee's standards to decide what oversight and consent a QI activity needs, and when it becomes research. It also covers working alongside consumers and whānau, applying Te Tiriti principles, and respecting Māori data sovereignty in improvement projects.
NZ$139 for roughly 3 hours (estimated) online. Quick checks build towards a 20-question final marked at 80%, and passing brings a certificate and an improvement-focused reflection. Because no authority or college has approved it, it cannot itself count as a required audit.
Every legal and regulatory point comes from primary sources: the HPCA Act 2003, the responsible authorities' standards and the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights. Anything we cannot confirm is left out.
Lessons, scenarios and assessment questions are written by us for each edition separately, then checked for accuracy, teaching quality and fair assessment before publication.
When a code, standard or law changes, the affected courses are reviewed and updated. Reported errors in legal or regulatory facts are corrected first.
Run or contribute to a learning review: terms of reference, review conversations, network of influences maps, sensemaking and actions that change systems.
Identify, assess and control clinical risk under the Code of Rights, Ngā Paerewa, the HQSC adverse events policy and New Zealand workplace health and safety law.
Reflect with purpose: Gibbs, Kolb and Johns models, recertification reflection requirements, reflective statements after a concern and the legal status of notes.
