Patient Safety
Health Literacy & Patient Safety
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Patient safety is a framework of organized activities that creates cultures, processes, procedures, behaviors, technologies, and environments in health care that consistently and sustainably lower risks, reduce the occurrence of avoidable harm, make errors less likely and reduce the impact of harm when it does occur.
Research studies have shown that an average of one in 10 patients is subject to an adverse event while receiving hospital care in high-income countries. The estimate for low- and middle-income countries suggests that up to one in four patients is harmed, with 134 million adverse events occurring annually due to unsafe care in hospitals, contributing to around 2.6 million deaths. Overall, 60% of deaths in low and middle-income countries from conditions amenable to health care are due to unsafe and poor-quality care, (Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021-2030).
The good news is most of these incidents are preventable if only key stakeholders work together to develop tailor-made interventions aimed at reducing the risk of unnecessary harm to patients.
CHAIN recognises that Patient safety is a public health challenge that requires urgent attention and has over the years worked with key stakeholders to promote it at community, national, regional and international level. The areas of focus include; Medication safety, injection safety, clinical trials, hand hygiene, Hospital Acquired Infection (HAis), maternal and child safety.