The Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS) is the leading credential for people who lead and advance patient safety. It is administered by the Certification Board for Professionals in Patient Safety (CBPPS), housed at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). Holding the CPPS signals that you can apply patient-safety science across an organisation. This module is independent prep over the public exam domains and is not the official IHI review course or the certification exam.

THE FIVE DOMAINS The CBPPS exam is built on five domains: Culture; Leadership & Outreach; Patient Safety Risks & Solutions; Measuring & Improving Performance; and Systems Thinking & Design / Human Factors. Roughly a fifth of the exam sits in each — no single area dominates, so study breadth matters.

Culture~20%

Leadership~20%

Risks & Solutions~20%

Measure & Improve~20%

Systems / HF~20%

The exam is a timed, multiple-choice test that rewards systems-level judgment over rote recall. Most questions describe a scenario and ask for the best action; the safest answer is usually the one that changes the system rather than blaming an individual.

🏛️CBPPS at IHI

🧩5 domains

🎯Best-answer scenarios

⚙️System over blame

EXAM TIP When two answers both look reasonable, prefer the one that is proactive and system-level (redesign, forcing function, measurement) over the one that is reactive and person-level (counsel, remind, retrain).

🛟 CPPS — Patient Safety Exam Prep