About This Certification

The Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS) credential establishes core standards for the patient safety discipline. Credential holders demonstrate competency in safety culture, systems thinking and human factors, risk identification and analysis, harm prevention, and safety measurement. It is highly valued for patient safety officers, quality leaders, risk managers, nurses, pharmacists, and physicians.

Exam Overview

The CPPS examination is a computer-based test of 110 multiple-choice questions (100 scored, 10 pretest) with a 2.5-hour time limit, administered at testing centers or via live remote proctoring. The exam is NCCA-accredited and covers five patient safety domains.

Exam Domains & Weighting

Domain	Description	Weight
Culture of Safety	Just culture, psychological safety, leadership accountability, healthy work environment, transparency, and disclosure (CANDOR)	20.0%
Systems Thinking, Human Factors, and Design	Human factors engineering, systems design, usability, technology safety, and reliability science	20.0%
Risk Identification and Analysis	Event reporting systems, RCA, FMEA, trigger tools, and proactive risk assessment methods	22.0%
Mitigating and Preventing Harm	Evidence-based harm prevention practices, medication safety, infection prevention, and safe transitions of care	22.0%
Measurement, Assessment, and Improvement	Safety metrics, measurement strategy, improvement science, and evaluating patient safety program effectiveness	16.0%