World Patient Safety Day

  The objectives of the World Patient Safety Day are to increase public awareness and engagement, enhance global understanding, and work towards global solidarity and action by Member States to enhance patient safety and reduce patient harm.  

[patientsafetyday]

Get it right, make it safe!

Tuesday 17 September 2024 marks the fifth annual World Patient Safety Day. The observance of the day aims to:

increase public awareness and engagement

enhance global understanding

work towards global solidarity and action by World Health Organization (WHO) Member States to enhance patient safety and reduce patient harm.

The theme of this year’s event is “Improving diagnosis for patient safety”.

Errors can happen at every stage of the diagnostic process and can happen in all healthcare settings. Diagnostic errors can be broadly divided into three categories:

Delayed diagnosis – where harm is caused because of a health condition not being identified at an earlier stage. This may  happen because of failure to use the correct tests, outdated forms of assessment or failure to act on results of monitoring or testing.

Incorrect diagnosis – where the wrong diagnosis is made and the true cause is then discovered later on. This can lead to patients receiving the wrong treatments, that may even be harmful. They also  may not receive the appropriate treatment for their condition.

Missed diagnosis – where a patient’s illness or health condition is not identified, which can result in their condition worsening and avoidable harm because they are not receiving any treatment.

Objectives of World Patient Safety Day 2024

Through the slogan “Get it right, make it safe”, WHO is calling for concerted efforts to significantly reduce diagnostic errors through a variety of interventions rooted in systems thinking, human factors and actively engaging patients, their families, health workers and healthcare leaders. These interventions include—but are not limited to—making sure clinicians have a complete patient history, undertaking thorough clinical examinations, improving access to diagnostic tests, implementing methods to measure and learn from diagnostic errors, and adopting technology-based solutions.

As part of this, WHO has set four objectives:

Raise global awareness of errors in diagnosis contributing to patient harm and emphasise the pivotal role of correct, timely and safe diagnosis in improving patient safety.

Give prominence to diagnostic safety in patient safety policy and clinical practice at all levels of health care, aligned with the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030.

Foster collaboration among policy-makers, health care leaders, health workers, patient organisations, and other stakeholders in advancing correct, timely and safe diagnosis.

Empower patients and families to actively engage with health workers and health care leaders to improve diagnostic processes.

[patientsafetyday]

Highlight the need for ensuring the safety of diagnostic processes.

World Patient Safety Day, one of WHO’s global public health days, carries forward its mission into 2024. Established in 2019 by the Seventy-second World Health Assembly through the adoption of resolution WHA72.6 – “Global action on patient safety” and observed annually on 17 September, World Patient Safety Day is the cornerstone of action to promote global health and safety. It is firmly grounded in the fundamental principle of medicine – “first do no harm”. Its objectives are to increase public awareness and engagement, enhance global understanding, and work towards global solidarity and action by Member States to promote patient safety. Each year, a new theme is selected for World Patient Safety Day to highlight a priority patient safety area needing urgent and concerted action. Recognizing the critical importance of correct and timely diagnoses in ensuring patient safety, “Improving diagnosis for patient safety” has been selected as the theme for World Patient Safety Day 2024. Resolution WHA72.6 and the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030 highlight the need for ensuring the safety of diagnostic processes. The global action plan encourages countries to adopt strategies that reduce diagnostic errors, which often arise from a combination of cognitive and system factors that impact the recognition of patients’ key signs and symptoms, and the interpretation and communication of their test results. A diagnostic error is the failure to establish a correct and timely explanation of a patient’s health problem, which can include delayed, incorrect, or missed diagnoses, or a failure to communicate that explanation to the patient. The magnitude of diagnostic errors is profound, accounting for nearly 16% of preventable harm across health systems. With most adults likely to face at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, substantial work needs to be done to improve the safety of diagnostic processes. Through the slogan “Get it right, make it safe!”, WHO calls for concerted efforts to significantly reduce diagnostic errors through multifaceted interventions rooted in systems thinking, human factors and of patients, their families, health workers and health care leaders. These interventions include but are not limited to ascertaining complete patient history, undertaking thorough clinical examination, improving access to diagnostic tests, implementing methods to measure and learn from diagnostic errors, and adopting technology-based solutions

[patientsafetyday]

Raise global awareness of errors in diagnosis contributing to patient harm.

Emphasize the pivotal role of correct, timely and safe diagnosis in improving patient safety

"Improving diagnosis for patient safety.'' World Patient Safety Day 2024.

[patientsafetyday]

Advancing correct, timely and safe diagnosis.

Foster collaboration among policy-makers, health care leaders, health workers, patient organizations, and other stakeholders in advancing correct, timely and safe diagnosis.

"Improving diagnosis for patient safety.'' World Patient Safety Day 2024.

[patientsafetyday]

Provide Safe clinical practice at all levels of health care.

Give prominence to diagnostic safety in patient safety policy and clinical practice at all levels of health care, aligned with the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030. "Improving diagnosis for patient safety.'' World Patient Safety Day 2024.

[patientsafetyday]

Actively engage with health workers and health care leaders to improve diagnostic processes.

Empower patients and families to actively engage with health workers and health care leaders to improve diagnostic processes." Improving diagnosis for patient safety.'' World Patient Safety Day 2024.

[patientsafetyday]

You have the right to know if anything went wrong in your care.

On World Patient Safety Day 2023, WHO calls for patients, families and communities to be actively involved in their care process.

[patientsafetyday]

Decide on your care together with your health worker.

it’s time to shift perspective to see patients as partners in health, not just recipients of care. World Patient Safety Day 2023

[patientsafetyday]

Act for your safety.

Speaj up, ask questions, voIce your concerns. organize events and other activities on and around 17 September 2023.

World Patient Safety Day 2023

[patientsafetyday]

At least 5 lives are lost due to unsafe health care.

Governments, nongovernmental organizations, professional organizations, civil society, patients’ organizations, academia and research institutes are all urged to join in the World Patient Safety Day 2023 campaign.

World Patient Safety Day 2023

[patientsafetyday]

The future of engaging patients and families for patient safety.

The future of engaging patients and families for patient safety

On Sept 17, 2023, WHO promotes World Patient Safety Day to increase global awareness of and action for patient safety. This year's focus is

On Sept 17, 2023, WHO promotes World Patient Safety Day to increase global awareness of and action for patient safety. This year's focus is engaging patients in “recognition of the crucial role patients, families and caregivers play in the safety of healthcare”. 

1 In this Comment, we outline how supporting patients and families to be partners in care safety is both a logical and moral imperative. That is, we need to do it for safer care, but we also should do it because safer care relies on relationships, reciprocal trust, and collaboration.

[patientsafetyday]

Follow the 5 Moments for Medication Safety to reduce your risk of medication harm.

Keep it on mind.

[patientsafetyday]

Give attention to situations where the risk of Medication errors is high, and practise medication safety measures.

We must prioritize action in areas where most medication-related harm occurs like high-risk situations, transitions of care and polypharmacy.

World Patient Safety Day 2022

Medication Safety Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are a leading cause of avoidable harm in health care across the world. M

[patientsafetyday]

US$ 42 billion of annual global health spending Money can be avoided if medication errors are prevented.

WHO today launched a global initiative to reduce severe, avoidable medication-associated harm in all countries by 50% over the next 5 years.

The Global Patient Safety Challenge on Medication Safety aims to address the weaknesses in health systems that lead to medication errors and the severe harm that results. It lays out ways to improve the way medicines are prescribed, distributed and consumed, and increase awareness among patients about the risks associated with the improper use of medication.

Medication errors cause at least one death every day and injure approximately 1.3 million people annually in the United States of America alone. While low- and middle-income countries are estimated to have similar rates of medication-related adverse events to high-income countries, the impact is about twice as much in terms of the number of years of healthy life lost. Many countries lack good data, which will be gathered as part of the initiative.

Globally, the cost associated with medication errors has been estimated at US$ 42 billion annually or almost 1% of total global health expenditure.

"We all expect to be helped, not harmed, when we take medication," said Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General. "Apart from the human cost, medication errors place an enormous and unnecessary strain on health budgets. Preventing errors saves money and saves lives."

Every person around the world will at some point in their life take medicines to prevent or treat illness. However, medicines do sometimes cause serious harm if taken incorrectly, monitored insufficiently or as the result of an error, accident or communication problems.

Both health workers and patients can make mistakes that result in severe harm, such as ordering, prescribing, dispensing, preparing, administering or consuming the wrong medication or the wrong dose at the wrong time. But all medication errors are potentially avoidable. Preventing errors and the harm that results requires putting systems and procedures in place to ensure the right patient receives the right medication at the right dose via the right route at the right time.

Medication errors can be caused by health worker fatigue, overcrowding, staff shortages, poor training and the wrong information being given to patients, among other reasons. Any one of these, or a combination, can affect the prescribing, dispensing, consumption, and monitoring of medications, which can result in severe harm, disability and even death.

Most harm arises from systems failures in the way care is organized and coordinated, especially when multiple health providers are involved in a patient’s care. An organizational culture that routinely implements best practices and that avoids blame when mistakes are made is the best environment for safe care.

The Challenge calls on countries to take early priority action to address these key factors: including medicines with a high risk of harm if used improperly; patients who take multiple medications for different diseases and conditions; and patients going through transitions of care, in order to reduce medication errors and harm to patients.

The actions planned in the Challenge will be focused on four areas: patients and the public; health care professionals; medicines as products; and systems and practices of medication. The Challenge aims to make improvements in each stage of the medication use process including prescribing, dispensing, administering, monitoring and use. WHO aims to provide guidance and develop strategies, plans and tools to ensure that the medication process has the safety of patients at its core, in all health care facilities.

"Over the years, I have spoken to many people who have lost loved ones to medication-related errors," said Sir Liam Donaldson, WHO Envoy for Patient Safety. "Their stories, their quiet dignity and their acceptance of situations that should never have arisen have moved me deeply. It is to the memories of all those who have died due to incidents of unsafe care that this Challenge should be dedicated."

This challenge is WHO’s third global patient safety challenge, following the Clean Care is Safe Care challenge on hand hygiene in 2005 and the Safe Surgery Saves Lives challenge in 2008. 

WHO today launched a global initiative to reduce severe, avoidable medication-associated harm in all countries by 50% over the next five yea

[patientsafetyday]

Everyone has a role to play in medication safety.

17 September is World #PatientSafety Day! This year we’re focusing on how to keep medication safe for everyone. Everyone needs medication. It’s important to know, check and ask about your medication when you need it

World Patient Safety Day 2022

Medication Safety Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are a leading cause of avoidable harm in health care across the world. M

[patientsafetyday]

Ensuring that your patients understand their medications and how to use them can help reduce harm in medication.

Medication Without Harm aims to reduce severe avoidable medication-related harm by 50%, globally in the next 5 years.

World Patient Safety Day 2022

Medication Safety Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are a leading cause of avoidable harm in health care across the world. M

[patientsafetyday]

We all have a role in reducing medication errors and harm. .

Errors can occur at different stages of the medication use process. Medication errors occur when weak medication systems and/or human factors such as fatigue, poor environmental conditions or staff shortages affect prescribing, transcribing, dispensing, administration and monitoring practices, which can then result in severe harm, disability and even death. Multiple interventions to address the frequency and impact of medication errors have already been developed, yet their implementation is varied. A wide mobilization of stakeholders supporting sustained actions is required. In response to this, WHO has identified Medication Without Harm as the theme for the third Global Patient Safety Challenge.