Press Release: WHO's Seeks Comment on Proposed International Patient Safety Solutions

World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for Patient Safety Seeks Comment on Proposed International Patient Safety Solutions

(OAKBROOK TERRACE and OAK BROOK, Ill., USA – November 30, 2006) Health care professionals and patient advocates from around the world are being invited to comment on nine proposed solutions for improving patient safety that have been developed under the aegis of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for Patient Safety.

The proposed Patient Safety Solutions address the issues of look-alike, sound-alike medications; correct patient identification; hand-over communications; wrong site, wrong patient surgery; use of concentrated electrolyte solutions; medication reconciliation; catheter and tubing misconnections; needle reuse and injection safety; and hand hygiene. The electronic Patient Safety Solution survey will be available online until February 16, 2007, at www.jcipatientsafety.org/survey.

“With the growing knowledge that millions of patients are being harmed daily throughout the world as a consequence of preventable adverse events, the urgency could not be greater for patient safety solutions that will help practitioners and health care organizations avoid these tragic occurrences,” says Dennis S. O’Leary, M.D., president, Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. “We welcome and encourage feedback on these proposed Patient Safety Solutions.”

“Creating patient safety solutions that will truly work across the international spectrum is no small challenge,” says Karen H. Timmons, president and chief executive officer, Joint Commission International. “But we are working to ensure that the solutions, once finalized, will
accommodate both cultural differences in the various world regions and the varying levels of development in countries around the world.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) designated the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and Joint Commission International as its Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety in 2005. The Joint Commission International Center for Patient Safety is operationalizing this effort through the establishment of a collaborative network of leaders in developing, transitional, and developed countries, who are helping to identify health care safety needs and match these with known best practices and solutions.

The proposed Patient Safety Solutions have already been reviewed by an international panel of patient safety experts as well as Regional Advisory Councils in Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region, and their comments have been integrated into the proposed solutions. The basic purpose of the solutions is to guide the re-design of patient care processes to prevent inevitable human errors from actually reaching patients.

To participate in the survey, learn more about the Patient Safety Solutions, or provide suggestions for future solutions development, please access www.jcipatientsafety.org/survey. Questions about the survey may be directed to Patti Zidlicky, project director, Joint Commission International Center for Patient Safety, at pzidlicky@jcaho.org.