Quality Improvement & Patient Safety Leadership Program (QIPS)

Admissions Contact

Name: April Smith
Position: Admissions and Recruitment Manager
Contact Number(s):

Program Information

Name: Mary Reich Cooper, MD, JD
Position: Director of Healthcare Quality & Safety and Operational Excellence Programs
Name: Ellen L. Guarnieri, RN, MHSA, CPHQ, FACHE
Position: Associate Program Director, External Programs

Cohorts Begin Fall, Spring & Summer 

For more information contact  Dr. Mary Cooper.

Advanced Practice Certicate (APC) Healthcare Quality & Safety - QIPS Concentration

Training Healthcare Leaders in Quality & Safety

Quality leaders can change the world, by providing safe, timely, effective, efficient equitable, and patient-centered care. We can teach you how! 

Healthcare Quality and Safety (HQS) is the study and prevention of adverse events, suboptimal care, ineffective treatments, inefficient processes, and unnecessary clinical variation in health systems. HQS professionals are on the forefront of transitioning healthcare delivery towards high-value care.

This online program includes asynchronous coursework, live virtual sessions, and a mentored project designed to align improvement work with the participants’ practice goals and the organization’s business priorities.

The online modules are delivered as three graduate-level courses, resulting in an Advance Practice Certificate (APC), which gives participants the opportunity to continue in the Jefferson College of Population Health and complete a Graduate Certificate or Master’s Degree in Healthcare Quality and Safety or use the transferable courses for further education.

  • 9-month program consists of interactive online learning modules and monthly live virtual sessions
  • Mentored project focused on needs of the student’s organization, resulting in organizational change
  • Interprofessional content, paced and designed around the needs and constraints of busy clinical staff
  • Curriculum taught by expert practitioners and focuses on deployable knowledge and skills
  • Program accrues transferable graduate course credit and CME/CEUs

Participants graduate from the program with practical knowledge and the leadership skills needed to drive the strategic execution of critical quality and safety improvements. Core content areas include:

  • Change Management 
  • Teamwork 
  • Project Management
  • Leadership 
  • Health Equity 
  • Complexity Science
  • Evaluation 
  • Tools and Methods

  • OPX 520: Change Management
  • HQS 509: Applied Principles of Healthcare Quality
  • HQS 515: Applied Principles of Patient Safety

  • Sessions include case studies and real-world workplace examples
  • Network with and learn from other participants facing similar challenges
  • Come away with the skills and knowledge to help focus your organization’s quality and safety efforts
  • Online access to coursework and materials, during and for six months after the program

Continuing Education 
In support of improving patient care, Thomas Jefferson University is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.


Interested in Sponsoring a Cohort for Your Organization?
We work with organizations to develop customizable programs to build interprofessional knowledge and teamwork for their leaders, using experts from the sponsoring organization, Jefferson Health and JCPH, and industry to demonstrate practical real-world experience of the application of quality and safety principles. For more information please contact Mary Reich Cooper, MD, JD.