Patient Safety Awareness Week is an annual observance to raise awareness about the importance of patient safety and how you can help make your hospital safer. It is intended to encourage everyone to learn more about healthcare safety, setting aside a moment each year to honor the thousands of people who have died or have been injured as a result of preventable medical errors.
This week is also a time for healthcare professionals, patients and their families, legislators, regulators, researchers, and others to come together to increase awareness about how we can collaborate to make healthcare safer.
It is important that everyone plays a role in keeping patients safe while they are being treated in hospitals and other healthcare settings by learning about the steps they can take to reduce their risks of harm or injury. This includes learning when to speak up when they notice something that does not seem right, or asking questions if something does not make sense.
This week also helps us remember that working together on this issue is essential because no one person or group has all the answers. We at Sotera Digital Health continue our efforts towards improving patient safety—not just during Patient Safety Awareness Week but every day of the year.
Patient Safety Awareness Week is a week-long observation initiated by the National Patient Safety Foundation in 2002. This annual event was created to stimulate discussions on how patient safety can be maximized in healthcare systems. During Patient Safety Awareness Week, the public receives educational information to better equip them in making informed healthcare decisions. In a 2019 report by the WHO, it was revealed that one in every 10 patients in High-income countries suffers from harm resulting from poor safety in the healthcare system.
Reports of medical errors and breached patient safety date as far back as the 1960s. It was not until the early 1990s that the patient safety movement picked up. The patient safety movement followed a publication report by Leape and Brennan of breached patient safety in 30,000 hospitalized New York State patients in 1984. The reason for the breach was narrowed down to preventable medical errors. It was also discovered that about 1.3 million injuries and 180,000 deaths could have been prevented across the United States.
The medical errors compromising patient safety cannot be entirely attributed to medical staff alone, but to all aspects of the healthcare system, according to Leape’s book “Error in Medicine,” published in 1994. Patient Safety Awareness Week highlights the role that medical staff and patients need to play to ensure overall safety. Patient Safety is not the responsibility of a single individual but a collective responsibility of healthcare systems, healthcare workers, and patients.
According to the World Health Organization, millions of patients are harmed each year due to unsafe health care worldwide, resulting in 2.6 million deaths annually in low-and middle-income countries alone. Four out of every ten patients are harmed during primary and ambulatory health care. The most detrimental errors are related to diagnosis, prescription, and the use of medicines. Medication errors alone cost an estimated US$ 42 billion annually. Unsafe surgical care procedures cause complications in up to 25% of patients resulting in 1 million deaths during or immediately after surgery annually.
Patient harm in health care is unacceptable. WHO is calling for urgent action by countries and partners around the world to reduce patient harm in health care. Patient safety and quality of care are essential for delivering effective health services and achieving universal health coverage.
Investment in improving patient safety can lead to significant financial savings. The cost of prevention is much lower than the cost of treatment due to harm. As an example, in the United States alone, focused safety improvements led to an estimated US$28 billion in savings in Medicare hospitals between 2010 and 2015.
All healthcare employees and administrators should strive to stay up-to-date on the latest safety initiatives, both locally and globally. This allows them to be an active participant in the success of such measures and in identifying additional areas for improvement. Remaining aware of the patient safety issues that affect other parts of the world, including their protocols, can help shape new policies in the United States.
Staff should use at least two ways to verify the identity of patients, such as name and date of birth. This will reduce medication errors and ensure patients receive the prescribed treatment. It is a key safeguard for all patients, especially those who cannot communicate independently, such as newborns.
Healthcare workers and administration leaders should work together to develop processes to report critical test results in a timely fashion.
All medications should be clearly labeled. Nurses and other clinical staff should keep a detailed record of the patient's medications. Patients should receive written documentation about the medicines they need to take and be encouraged to update their providers of any medication changes.
Make improvements to medical equipment alarms so that key personnel can hear and respond to them quickly.
Employees should follow the hand-cleaning guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or WHO. Hospital administrators should set goals for hand cleaning and infection control and seek continuous improvement in this area.
Patients may experience suicidal ideations while under care at a healthcare facility. Hospitals must mitigate the risk of suicide by performing environmental risk assessments and using relevant screening tools.
The correct surgery should be performed on the correct patient and at the correct place on the patient's body. Providers should clearly mark a patient's body before surgery and verify before the procedure begins.
At Sotera, our goal is to help hospitals improve patient safety across the enterprise with minimum impact on alarm burden, clinical workflow, or support. If we can help nurses detect patient deterioration early enough, further complications can be avoided. The Sotera team includes leaders in patient monitoring technology as well as clinical leaders that understand the challenges of introducing technology and practice change into hospitals.
We are on a mission to help healthcare providers reduce mortality rates in U.S. hospitals by providing the next generation of patient monitoring technology that allows medical professionals to detect conditions developing in real-time.
We are dedicated to saving lives through our data-driven continuous patient monitor systems.
Sources:
https://nationaltoday.com/patient-safety-awareness-week/
https://online.tamiu.edu/articles/msn/patient-safety-goals-in-2021.aspx