Celebrating the 2025–2026 CQuIPS Education Program Graduates
This spring, we celebrated the accomplishments of participants from our three flagship educational program: the Excellence in Quality Improvement Certificate Program (EQUIP), the Certificate Course in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, and the Veterans Affairs Quality Scholars (VAQS) Fellowship program. Through capstone presentations, project showcases, and collaborative learning events, participants had the opportunity to share the results of their learning with their cohorts.
Together, these programs brought learners from a diverse range of healthcare disciplines, organizations, and career stages, with a strong interest and passion for quality improvement and patient safety across the healthcare system.
The 2025–2026 cohort represented clinicians, educators, quality and patient safety professionals, managers, researchers, and healthcare leaders from hospitals, rehabilitation organizations, and universities across Canada and internationally.
Participants included physicians from specialties such as emergency medicine, nephrology, psychiatry, paediatrics, infectious diseases, critical care, surgery, palliative care, and internal medicine, alongside nurse practitioners, fellows, educators, quality improvement specialists, and operational leaders. Learners were affiliated with organizations including Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Sinai Health, SickKids, CAMH, Women’s College Hospital, Michael Garron Hospital, Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Mackenzie Health, the University of Toronto, and several organizations outside Ontario and Canada.
The breadth of perspectives and experiences enriched discussions throughout the year and reinforced the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in advancing healthcare quality and safety.
For the first time since COVID, EQUIP participants attended the three-day intensive component in-person in Toronto. This was followed by a year-long longitudinal curriculum that combined webinars, coaching, and project-based learning focused on measurement, change management, implementation of iterative changes, evaluation of impact in addition to equity, patient engagement, academic-operational partnerships and scholarly dissemination.
Capstone presentations showcased a wide range of improvement initiatives addressing organizational priorities and patient care challenges, spanning the 6 domains of quality:
- Increasing Sign Language Interpreter use (Safe, Patient-Centred, Equitable)
- Improving access to clinic-based care (timeliness)
- Improving guideline adherence (safe)
- Resource stewardship (efficient)
- Improving care pathways (efficiency, effectiveness)
- Decreasing water usage in hemodialysis (sustainability)
- Implementing best practices for patient care (effectiveness)
- Decreasing time to receive medication treatment (timeliness)
- Decreasing time from diagnosis to treatment (timeliness)
Participants demonstrated how structured improvement methods, stakeholder engagement, and data-informed decision-making can be used to advance meaningful change within complex healthcare systems.
The Certificate Course continues to provide healthcare professionals with foundational and applied training in quality improvement and patient safety. The curriculum covered core topics including improvement methodology, equity, patient engagement, measurement, qualitative methods, patient safety, human factors engineering, leading change, teamwork, and health informatics. Participants completed assignments, received individualized coaching, and presented their projects at the annual Capstone Event.
This year’s participants represented a broad range of clinical disciplines and healthcare settings, bringing forward projects that addressed challenges encountered in everyday practice. Project topics included:
- Improving access to care and patient flow
- Enhancing communication and handoff processes
- Optimizing clinical pathways and care standardization
- Strengthening patient safety practices
- Improving quality of care for specific patient populations
- Supporting healthcare provider education and engagement
- Using data and measurement to guide improvement efforts
The capstone event highlighted not only the diversity of project topics, but also the participants’ growing confidence in applying quality improvement methods to problems within their own organizations.
As the only international site within the Veterans Affairs Quality Scholars network, the Toronto VAQS Fellowship continues to demonstrate their strength and leadership in QI by engaging with other sites during weekly sessions and poster abstract acceptances and oral abstract presentations at the annual Summer Institute. The two-year fellowship combines local mentorship, international collaboration, formal coursework, and the design and implementation of a substantive quality improvement project.
This year’s VAQS graduate completed their project on “T.O.A.S.T. – Targeted Oncologics & Anti-neoplastics Safety Team helps to re-invent Systemic Care Delivery across the Patient Journey at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre”. They were also invited to an international nursing conference in the UK to present a second VAQS project titled “Reducing Postpartum Hemorrhage Rates in a Labour and Delivery Unit at Mount Sinai Hospital, Canada, through the Implementation of Evidence-based Clinical Practice Guidelines”.
Through engagement with faculty and peers across the international VAQS network, fellows developed the skills and scholarship needed to lead improvement initiatives within their organizations and beyond.
The graduation and capstone events offered an opportunity to celebrate the dedication, creativity, and leadership demonstrated by participants throughout the year. While the projects addressed a wide variety of healthcare challenges, they shared a common goal: improving the quality, safety, equity, and experience of care.
We congratulate all 2025–2026 graduates and fellows on their accomplishments and look forward to seeing how they continue to advance healthcare improvement in their organizations and communities!