The objectives of the PhDHQ are:

• prepare health quality professionals for leadership roles in practice, education and research
• provide learners with skills to apply theoretical and practical knowledge of health quality, risk and safety to enhance safer healthcare for Canadians
• integrate theoretical and practical opportunities for learners to ensure graduates have acquired applied skills in health quality, risk and safety
• ensure learners can articulate policy and legislative responsibilities and accountabilities for safer healthcare for Canadians
• support learners to apply for grants and awards to support research in health quality, risk and safety

The program learning outcomes are that graduates will be able to:

• adopt and adapt conventional models of safety, risk and quality from multiple disciplines through critical reflection and analysis to answer health quality improvement problems
• advance knowledge of sociopolitical and organizational contexts about health quality education, research and application in practice
• critically appraise the philosophical, theoretical, and empirical foundations of the discipline of improvement science
• engage in all aspects of research including the philosophical stance, to methodology, methods, implementation, data collection, analysis, results and knowledge translation
• create media to publicize and disseminate quality improvement projects and research.
• design and justify the current state of improvement science from a theoretical perspective