We at BCPSLS Central Office are deeply saddened by the recent passing of our former leader and mentor, Dr. Doug Cochrane. As a champion of patient safety, Doug’s guidance and expertise helped shape the trajectory of patient safety incident reporting in BC.

Doug supported BCPSLS since its inception in the early 2000s. He believed passionately in a culture where staff felt supported to raise their hand and share their safety concerns. His leadership and support were key in helping establish a provincial patient safety reporting system, the first one in Canada.

Doug Cochrane and BCPSLS Senior Technical Director Inderpal Chani

When BCPSLS began its provincial implementation in 2008, Doug was still steering the ship, now as chair of the newly formed provincial BCPSLS Steering Committee. That year he was also appointed Provincial Patient Safety & Quality Officer as well as chair of the newly established BC Patient Safety & Quality Council, now Health Quality BC.

Doug believed that recognizing and acting on errors was central to providing safe care, as he shared in BCPSLS’s very first podcast: Patient Safety in the Canadian Healthcare System.

“We need to understand where the system has weaknesses,” Doug said. “And every system, health care included, that you can think of, has ways of understanding where it has weaknesses. So, BCPSLS was designed specifically with that in mind . . . If we take that information and we consistently and relentlessly look for solutions, test those solutions, and implement those solutions, things will actually improve for patients.”

BCPSLS Executive Director Annemarie Taylor and Doug Cochrane

We will remember Doug for his calm, quiet authority, his optimism, his level-headed leadership, and the incredible contribution he made to BCPSLS and to patient safety in BC and far beyond. 

With gratitude,

BCPSLS Central Office