Patient Safety Awareness Week: What You Need to Know

As with all healthcare awareness holidays, the goal is to bring light to aspects of the field that might be overlooked, or simply not talked about enough, and to share important information that could help save lives.

Patient Safety Awareness Week is no different, and maybe the most important of all.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 40% of patients experience adverse situations in emergency or primary care facilities, and nearly 80% of those cases are preventable.

Today, we’ll discuss some other statistics as well as provide resources to bring help awareness to Patient Safety Awareness Week in your practice.

What Texas is Doing

The Dell Senton Medical Center and UT Austin Dell Medical School teamed up to host a series of virtual events to cover topics including: health equity, patient experience, wellness, and costs of care.

Like many other states, Texas recognized the need to inform the public and the healthcare community about the risks and dangers associated with maintaining patient safety, and resources like these are available to everyone.

Why PSAW is Important

Highlight Leadership

This one is simple. If the leadership at your practice are promoting patient safety awareness, this will trickle down and promote this same attitude throughout the company. 

Having the support of senior leaders instills confidence in other employees and supports the overall goal of keeping patients safe and healthy.

Promote Safety Culture

Similarly, if every member of your team is contributing to the overall goal of promoting safety culture, not only will this create a positive attitude among employees in regards to patient safety, but it will also register with patients.

Ensuring that patients know that your practice’s team has your safety as their number one priority will significantly improve trust in your practice.

Celebrate Wins

What’s the best way to promote patient safety awareness? Let everyone know how you’ve already done it! 

It’s easy to talk the talk when it comes to committing your team to the health and well-being of the patients you care for, but you can reinforce that talk by showing your team and patients alike how you’ve already seen success on this front.

Real-Life Connections

One of the easiest ways to communicate a larger message with several people is by way of storytelling.

Sharing stories of how your commitment to patient safety has impacted the lives of patients (in a HIPAA compliant way - of course) will help your message resonate with patients and team members alike.