World Patient Safety Day is celebrated every year on 17 September. The day is dedicated to create awareness among families, patients, healthcare professionals, healthcare leaders, and policymakers about the measures to prevent medical errors, and thereby reduce patient harm.
Patient safety is an essential aspect of healthcare system. The significance of observing the World Patient Safety Day is to promote safe healthcare practices, enhance healthcare quality, and foster safe & effective patient care.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "The day aims to influence stakeholders including patients, families, policy makers, health care leaders, health workers and patient organizations to work collaboratively towards co-designing health care policies and safety interventions that truly reflect the needs and preferences of patients, ultimately enhancing healthcare safety globally."
World Patient Safety Day 2023 Theme
Every year, the World Patient Safety Day focuses on a specific theme to promote discussions around patient safety, and address challenges to safe healthcare practices.
The theme of World Patient Safety Day 2023 is "Engaging Patients for Patient Safety."
World Patient Safety Day 2023 Slogan
According to the WHO, the slogan of World Patient Safety Day 2023 is "Elevate the Voice of Patients."
History and Significance of World Patient Safety Day
The history of World Patient Safety Day dates back to 2019 when the 72nd WHA (World Health Assembly) passed a resolution WHA72.6 on "Global Action on Patient Safety" with the aim to strengthen the global healthcare systems. World Patient Safety Day 2023 marks the 5 years of the Patient Safety Day celebration.
The significance of World Patient Safety Day includes the following:
To highlight the major patient safety issues, and ensure they are well addressed.
To improve the quality of care, and prevent all possible medical errors.
To promote patient centric care including patient engagement and patient decision making. All these can lead to better health outcomes.
To promote patient empowerment by educating patients about their rights and responsibilities.
To discuss all the barriers and challenges towards safety healthcare practices on global level, and implement measures to address them.
To advocate healthcare policies and regulations with an aim to enhance safety standards in healthcare.
Advocate immediate action to promote drug safety and raise global awareness about the significant burden of medication errors and unsafe medication practices.
World Patient Safety Day 2023 Activities
World Patient Safety Day activities include educational workshops, seminars, awareness campaigns, conferences, and events to educate public and healthcare professionals about the patient safety issues, best practices to reduce patient harm, adoption of patient-centric care, and more.
World Patient Safety Day 2023: Posters and Images
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