The safety of the patients is the priority of any doctor as much as saving their lives is. Therefore, on 17th September 2020, the world will observe the World Patient Safety Day, which was established by the 72nd World Health Assembly in May 2019, with the adoption of resolution WHA72.6 on ‘Global action on patient safety’. This year where the world is fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, the theme is “Health Worker Safety: A Priority for Patient Safety”. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), it emphasizes that fact that “the need for a safe working environment for health workers as a prerequisite for ensuring patient safety”.
Objective For 2020
The healthcare system across the world has been burdened since the beginning of this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic because it unexpectedly started spreading at a rapid rate. Therefore, keeping the healthcare system in mind, here are some of the objectives of the World Patient Safety Day 2020 as mentioned by WHO:
- Raise global awareness about the importance of health worker safety and its interlinkages with patient safety
- Engage multiple stakeholders and adopt multimodal strategies to improve the safety of health workers and patients
- Implement urgent and sustainable actions by all stakeholders which recognize and invest in the safety of health workers, as a priority for patient safety
- Provide due recognition of health workers’ dedication and hard work, particularly amid the current fight against COVID-19
Patient Safety Situations
According to WHO, 134 million adverse events occur each year due to unsafe care in hospitals in low- and middle-income countries, contributing to 2.6 million deaths annually.
But why do such events occur at all? The answer is that the healthcare setting is very complicated and gets a little unorganised sometimes. Lack of proper communication, high amounts of stress, lack of coordination between the workforce, etc. can be some of the reasons. Following is a list of patient safety situations, as per WHO, causing most concern:
- Medication errors
- Healthcare-associated infections
- Unsafe surgical care procedures
- Unsafe injections practices
- Diagnostic errors
- Unsafe transfusion practices
- Radiation errors
- Sepsis
- Venous thromboembolism (blood clots)
What Can Be Done?
- Ensure proper sanitization in the hospitals and clinics
- Healthcare workers are heavily burdened in the current scenario. Fatigue and stress can result in errors. Therefore, medical authorities should ensure that they get proper rest.
- Use only fresh and sterilized medical tools like injections, for every patient.
- Explain to the patient everything. Inform them about their condition, what treatment they will be getting, etc.
- Handling of the patients in case of accidents or other scenarios should be done with extreme care.
- Follow evidence-based principles for designing hospitals or clinics.
- Ensure proper coordination in the team and work in a more organized manner.
- Avoid any kind of communication gap between the co-workers as well as with the patients or their families.
- Handle and use all the equipment carefully
WHO also recommends 5 Moments for medication safety. “The 5 Moments for Medication Safety patient engagement tool focuses on 5 key moments where action by the patient or caregiver can reduce the risk of harm associated with the use of medication/s. This tool aims to engage and empower patients to be involved in their own care”. It includes:
- Starting a medication
- Taking my medication
- Adding a medication
- Reviewing my medication
- Stopping my medication
Therefore, as much as it is important to save a life, a person’s safety during treatment is also necessary and should not be overlooked. Also, in these tough times, where every country is at a war with the novel coronavirus, the health and safety of the healthcare workers should also be given equal importance. They are facing an increased risk of infections, violence, accidents, illness, and death and along with the patients, they should be taken care of as well.
