RACS Global Health continues to advocate and support better outcomes for patient safety across all its programs. Patient safety is a top priority and requires education, understanding and teams that work together. It everyone's business, from our partners, our volunteers and our program staff, to ensure that each person is delivered the care they need, safely and effectively.
To ensure successful implementation of patient safety strategies, RACS Global Health collaborates closely with in country partners and stakeholders to strengthen policies, build leadership capacity, collect data that contributes to safety improvements, mentor health care professionals and deliver upgrades and training for vital equipment.
The purpose of World Patient Safety Day is to promote patient safety by increasing public awareness and engagement, enhancing global understanding and working towards global solidarity and action. Quality health services across the globe should be effective, safe and people centred.
The World Health Organization website lists a number of stark statistics, which serve to emphasize the importance of this issue:
- 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
- 15 per cent of hospital expenses can be attributed to treating patient safety failures in OECD countries
- 40 per cent of patients are harmed in the primary and ambulatory settings; up to 80 per cent of harm in these settings can be avoided
- Investments in reducing patient harm can lead to significant financial savings, and more importantly better patient outcomes. An example of prevention is engaging patients, if done well, it can reduce the burden of harm by up to 15 per cent.
