The National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF), has launched United for Patient Safety, a campaign designed to spark dialogue and promote action to improve the safety of the healthcare system for patients and the workforce.
This year, Patient Safety Awareness Week, March 13-19, 2016, will be observed as a highlight of the campaign, seeking to instill the message that "every day is patient safety day."
Citing the recent NPSF report, Free from Harm: Accelerating Patient Safety Improvement Fifteen Years after To Err Is Human, Dr Tejal Gandhi, president and chief executive officer of NPSF, said: "We have seen some improvement in patient safety, but 1 in 10 patients still experiences a hospital-acquired complication, and many more harms occur in outpatient settings, where most care is provided, so there is still much work to be done."
The Free from Harm report makes eight recommendations for achieving total systems safety and a culture of safety in health care. Healthcare leaders and professionals participating in the campaign are being asked to read the report, hold a discussion in their organization about the recommendations, and work to increase the safety of the care they provide by implementing the recommended tactics in the report.
The National Patient Safety Foundation, United for Patient Safety, US
