Recognizing that healthcare errors impact 1 in every 10 patients around the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) calls patient safety an endemic concern. Statistic published by WHO in August indicates that patient death occurring due to a preventable medical accident, while receiving healthcare, is estimated to be 1 in 300.
When we talk about patient safety, we’re really talking about how hospitals and other health care organizations protect their patients from errors, injuries, accidents, and infections. While many hospitals are good at keeping their patients safe, some hospitals aren’t.
The simplest definition of patient safety is the prevention of errors and adverse effects to patients associated with health care.
Qatar launched Qatar Patient Safety Week (QPSW) as a national annual event in 2014 to raise awareness and spread the concepts of patient safety among all healthcare providers as well as the public across Qatar.
This month, Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) held the fifth QPSW, which coincided with the first World Patient Safety Day, which was approved by the World Health Organisation this year to enhance global understanding and solidarity to improve patient safety. The World Patient Safety Day was marked with slogan ‘Speak up for Patient Safety’.
Speaking up on patient safety concerns can have a profound effect on preventing harm, promoting employees’ psychological safety, teamwork among units, opportunities to learn and improve. It also helps in decreasing staff turnover, and ultimately costs.
“Fear of speaking up is a persistent challenge that needs to be addressed in our collective efforts to reduce patient harm. Silence between patients and providers, between healthcare professionals working within the same facility, between public and governing bodies can inadvertently lead to inevitable harm,” said Minister of Public Health
H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari.
The Minister emphasised that the MoPH plays a crucial role in ensuring that the people living in Qatar receive the safest quality care available across the globe. “It is important to acknowledge everyone’s role in bringing issues to light as soon as they are identified and acting proactively to mitigate risk,” said the Minister.
In May this year, the WHO endorsed the establishment of World Patient Safety Day (WPSD) to be observed annually on September 17. Events were held around the world to raise awareness of the need to establish patient safety as a global health priority.
“We were ahead of the game as we celebrated the last two QPSW events in 2017 and 2018 around September 17 as a follow through to the proposal by the Second Global Ministerial Summit on Patient Safety in March 2017. In solidarity with the first WPSD, we adopted WHO slogan “speak up for patient safety” as a theme for this year’s QPSW,” said Dr Huda Al Katheeri, the Acting Director of the Healthcare Quality & Patient Safety Department at MoPH.
The Patient Safety Week included a number of activities and events in a number of hospitals and health centers, to promote awareness about the importance of quality of health care provided to patients and make them safer.
The Ministry of Public Health organised a conference attended by about 1,000 health practitioners from various health institutions in Qatar, which was attended by 34 experts from the State of Qatar and abroad. The events included 11 lectures and panel discussions with the participation of patients and their representatives.
Health care providers were also surveyed about patients’ experiences through a dedicated questionnaire, in addition to public and healthcare providers on informed consent. The ministry has developed its own national policy to be implemented by all health institutions and health care providers, and the results of these questionnaires will be made public soon.
A scientific posters competition was launched during the conference in which 135 posters were evaluated by the health care quality and patient safety management team at the ministry.
Organising an exhibition in which many institutions and health care facilities participated With strong collaboration with patients and families, Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) marked the ‘Patient Safety Week’ through booths set up in all their centers, activities for over 270 schools, health awareness for home care patients and activities and competitions for headquarter departments and health centers.
Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) held the first Qatar Summit for Healthcare Risk Management in collaboration with the American Society of Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM).
Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) contributed to the national event by participating in public campaign as well as local celebrations in each of its health centers across Qatar. Activities included booth displays, video presentations, hand hygiene dance and a patient safety song.
Al-Ahli Hospital, Doha Clinic Hospital and Aster Hospital are all running their patient safety campaigns with varied focus on different patient safety aspects for example messages on “speak up for patient safety”, “Ask me 3”, infection prevention and control, medication safety, staff safety with promotional activities to both staff and patients utilizing flyers and videos, giving souvenirs for patients. MoPH also had a the public campaign in the Mall of Qatar.
Several buildings including the MoPH, Aster Hospital, the Torch Hotel were lit up in orange colour to show solidarity with the WPSD celebrations.
The World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), an initiative of Qatar Foundation (QF), presented research findings from its report titled, Transforming Patient Safety: A Sector-Wide Systems Approach, at the 8th International Patient Safety Conference 2019 held in Hyderabad, India, recently. The conference, organised by the Apollo Hospitals Group, discussed the direction of healthcare within the new era of Artificial Intelligence, as well as focused on best practices to minimize medical errors.
WISH was represented by Dr Walid Qoronfleh, Director of Research and Policy and Maha El Akoum, Head of Content and Research Fellow and engaged with an international community of policy makers, academics, researchers, and healthcare experts.
“Patient safety is not a luxury, but a right for all patients and their families. And that is why, as a local stakeholder in healthcare reform in Qatar, WISH hopes to assist in defining the national strategy for patient safety improvement,” said Dr Qoronfleh.
El Akoum presented findings from the WISH report, shared Qatar’s research experience in patient safety, perceptions of safety culture among nurses, and WISH’s initiative ‘Academy for Emerging Leaders in Patient Safety’, which was hosted in collaboration with MoPH and US-based MedStar Health.
“WISH’s research efforts in Qatar have shown that nurses play a critical role in ensuring patient safety through their increased interaction with both the patients as well as the care processes, allowing them to identify the inherent weaknesses in the system. Therefore, it is crucial for nurses to feel safe and empowered to speak up and for the system to reward them for doing so,” said El Akoum.
