Why Patient Safety?

By Olabanji Mikail FISQua

Patient safety involves a structured approach to creating a healthcare environment that consistently minimizes risks and prevents avoidable harm. This includes establishing cultures, processes, procedures, behaviours, technologies, and settings that reduce the likelihood of errors and mitigate their impact when they do occur.

Healthcare inherently carries some level of risk at every stage of the care process. To achieve sustainable improvements in patient safety, clear policies, strong organizational leadership, data-driven safety strategies, skilled healthcare professionals, and active involvement of patients and their families are essential.

Globally, (World Health Organization, WHO) about 1 in 10 patients experience harm during healthcare, leading to over 3 million deaths annually due to unsafe care. In low-to-middle-income countries, up to 4 in 100 people die from unsafe care. More than half of this harm is preventable, with medication errors accounting for a significant portion. In primary and ambulatory care settings, up to 40% of patients experience harm, of which 80% could be avoided.

Common causes of preventable patient harm include medication errors, unsafe surgical procedures, healthcare-associated infections, diagnostic errors, patient falls, pressure ulcers, patient misidentification, unsafe blood transfusions, and venous thromboembolism.

Patient harm not only impacts health outcomes but also hampers global economic growth, potentially reducing it by 0.7% annually. The indirect costs of patient harm amount to trillions of US dollars each year. Investing in patient safety, such as through effective patient engagement, can result in significant financial savings and better health outcomes, reducing harm by up to 15% (WHO).

Join me for the next episode.

Olabanji Mikail FISQua
olabanjiconsulting@gmail.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olabanji-mikail-kolade-fisqua-438b20124