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Health Quality Alberta has developed a new resource for healthcare providers: Promoting Civility for Safer Patient Care: A Guide and Toolkit for Healthcare Providers and Organizations. This resource provides tools and information to help foster respectful workplaces and address incivility when it occurs.
Why civility matters
Incivility in health care includes rude, disrespectful, or dismissive behaviours that undermine trust, disrupt teamwork, and create moral distress. Left unaddressed, these behaviours can lead to errors, harm or near harm to patients, neglect of care needs, complaints, and potentially worse clinical outcomes.
What’s included in the toolkit
This toolkit includes checklists, assessments, templates, strategies, and resources to
- establish clear expectations and standards for respectful workplace behaviour;
- prevent incivility through education, communication, and leadership practices;
- respond early, consistently, and effectively when incivility occurs; and
- take an integrated approach that incorporates actions at the individual, leadership, and organizational level.
Webinar
To celebrate Canadian Patient Safety Week, Health Quality Alberta is hosting a webinar with Dr. William O. Cooper of Vanderbilt Health’s Center for Patient and Professional Advocacy (CPPA) on October 27, 2026, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. MT.
CPPA is a leading authority on professional accountability in health care. Dr. Cooper, president of CPPA, is internationally recognized for his work in professionalism, healthcare culture, and patient safety. Health Quality Alberta’s new toolkit highlights CPPA’s evidence-based Tiered Intervention Model, which has been implemented in more than 300 hospitals and health systems to address behaviours that undermine a culture of safety and respect.
Participants will learn
- how disrespectful behaviours create a ripple effect that impacts patient safety,
- practical strategies to support constructive behaviour change, and
- how to strengthen patient safety through professionalism and accountability.
The webinar is free of charge and regulated members are welcome to attend. Register for the webinar by emailing info@hqa.ca.
