On World Patient Safety Day (September 17), the global health community highlights the persistent gaps in healthcare safety.
About World Patient Safety Day
- Date: Observed annually on September 17.
- Global Focus: Highlights the importance of patient safety and calls for global efforts to reduce harm in healthcare settings.
- Participation: Involves patients, families, caregivers, health workers, healthcare leaders, and policy-makers to demonstrate their commitment to safe healthcare for all.
- WHO Resolution WHA 72.6 – Global Action on Patient Safety: This resolution, endorsed by the World Health Assembly (WHA), designates patient safety as a global health priority.
- Focus: Establishing World Patient Safety Day and advocating for global action to improve patient safety, with emphasis on reducing harm in healthcare worldwide.
- 2025 Theme: “Safe Care for Every Newborn and Every Child”
Key Focus Areas (2025)
- Newborn and Child Safety: Emphasizes the importance of ensuring safe healthcare for newborns and children, who are among the most vulnerable groups in healthcare systems.
- Focuses on preventing harm and ensuring quality care from birth onwards.
- Universal Access to Safe Care: Promotes universal health coverage with an emphasis on providing safe and quality care for every newborn and child, especially in low-resource settings.
- Strengthening Healthcare Systems: Calls for improved neonatal care and child health systems to ensure safe environments for treatment and care.
- Highlights the need for skilled healthcare workers and proper facilities to support safe care for children.
Why Does It Matters?
- Global Commitment: World Patient Safety Day 2025 serves as a reminder for governments, healthcare providers, and society to prioritize patient safety for newborns and children globally.
- Vulnerable Populations: Focuses on the protection of newborns and children, who face higher risks of harm due to immature immune systems, inexperienced caregivers, and limited healthcare access.
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About Patient Safety
- Definition: Patient Safety refers to the prevention of errors, adverse events, and harm to patients during the provision of healthcare. It ensures that healthcare interventions do not endanger patients’ lives or well-being.
- According to the WHO, the principle “Do no harm” is central to patient safety. While medical benefits vary, harm should never be caused.
- Key Aspects:
- Error Prevention: Reducing medical errors in diagnosis, treatment, and medication administration.
- Safe Practices: Implementation of standard protocols, infection control, and safe surgical practices.
- Monitoring & Reporting: Establishing incident reporting systems to identify risks and improve quality of care.
- Training & Awareness: Educating healthcare professionals and patients about safety protocols.
- Concerning Scenario:
- Global Challenge: Despite significant advancements in healthcare, millions globally still receive unsafe treatments.
- Globally, 1 in 10 hospital patients and 4 in 10 outpatients experience harm, emphasizing the need for stronger patient safety frameworks, particularly in India, where the healthcare system faces unique challenges.
Why is Patient Safety Critical for India?
- High Incidence of Harm: Globally, 10% of hospitalized patients and 40% of outpatients face harm due to unsafe healthcare practices. In India, the rate is likely higher due to systemic challenges such as overcrowded hospitals and inadequate infrastructure.
- Epidemiological Shift and Treatment Complexity: India is experiencing a shift from infectious diseases (e.g., TB, malaria) to lifestyle diseases (e.g., diabetes, heart disease, cancer), which require long-term treatment and multi-specialty care.
- This increases the complexity of care and the likelihood of safety lapses.
- Increased Patient Safety Risks: Managing chronic conditions requires coordinated care across various specialties, increasing the potential for errors, miscommunication, and lack of timely interventions, leading to safety risks.
- Unsafe Medical Practices: Issues like unsafe injections, medication errors, and hospital-acquired infections contribute significantly to patient harm in India.
- Poor hygiene, incorrect prescriptions, and insufficient training exacerbate these risks.
- Overburdened Healthcare System: With one doctor for 10,000 people in rural areas, the Indian healthcare system is overstretched, leading to fatigue and error-prone care.
- Additionally, only 5% of Indian hospitals are accredited by NABH, further compromising patient safety standards.
- Economic and Social Impact: Unsafe healthcare practices increase hospital stays and medical costs, placing a financial strain on families.
- Furthermore, the lack of a robust safety culture diminishes public trust in the healthcare system.
Major Forms of Patient Harm in India
- Hospital-Acquired Infections (HAIs): Infections contracted in hospitals, such as Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia in ICUs, due to poor hygiene.
- Unsafe Injections: Reusing syringes can lead to diseases like HIV and Hepatitis B.
- Medication Errors: Incorrect prescriptions, wrong dosages, and adverse drug interactions.
- Delayed Diagnosis: Misdiagnoses, such as mistaking dengue for a common fever.
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Steps Taken by India to Strengthen Patient Safety
- National Patient Safety Implementation Framework (2018-25): This framework is a roadmap for prioritizing patient safety, introducing systems for adverse event reporting and establishing quality standards.
- National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH): NABH audits hospitals against safety standards, though less than 5% of Indian hospitals are fully accredited, showing significant room for improvement.
- Pharmacovigilance Networks: India’s Society of Pharmacovigilance and other networks monitor adverse drug reactions, ensuring safer medication practices.
- NGO Involvement: NGOs like the Patients for Patient Safety Foundation raise awareness and promote safe healthcare practices in over 1,100 hospitals across India.
Global Initiatives for Making Healthcare Safe
- World Health Organization (WHO) Global Patient Safety Action Plan (2021–2030): It aims to reduce patient harm globally by strengthening healthcare systems to ensure safe care.
- Key Focus Areas:
- Building national safety systems.
- Fostering patient engagement in safety.
- Enhancing healthcare worker education on safety protocols.
- Promoting safe surgery and medication safety.
- The Safe Surgery Saves Lives Initiative: It was launched by WHO, this initiative focuses on improving the safety of surgical procedures.
- Key Strategies:
- Introducing the Surgical Safety Checklist to reduce surgical complications.
- Promoting safer anesthesia practices and infection control during surgery.
- Global Patient Safety Network (GPSN): The GPSN connects countries and organizations working on patient safety initiatives to share knowledge and best practices.
- Focus: It supports the implementation of patient safety practices in hospitals and encourages collaborative efforts to minimize patient harm.
- The Patient Safety Movement Foundation: This non-profit organization aims to eliminate preventable patient deaths by promoting best practices in hospitals and advocating for policy change.
- Key Actions:
- Safety protocols for hospitals.
- Pushing for policy reforms to improve hospital safety.
- Offering tools to reduce medical errors, including checklists and safety training for healthcare workers.
- International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua): ISQua works to improve quality of care and patient safety through accreditation and education.
- Key Activities:
- Accrediting healthcare organizations globally.
- Providing training on quality improvement and patient safety standards.
- Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA): It aims to enhance global health security, including the safety of healthcare systems, especially during emergencies like pandemics.
- Focus Areas:
- Building stronger health systems.
- Ensuring safe healthcare even in crisis situations, like Ebola or COVID-19 outbreaks.
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Challenges to Patient Safety in India
- Overburdened Healthcare System: High patient-to-doctor ratios and long shifts lead to fatigue and error-prone care, particularly in rural areas.
- Cultural and Social Barriers: Patients’ passive attitudes toward healthcare often stem from information asymmetry between patients and doctors, where patients hesitate to question treatments due to trust and low health literacy.
- Limited Quality Standards: While NABH sets standards, a lack of widespread accreditation means the quality of healthcare varies significantly across hospitals.
- Ineffective Use of Technology: While AI and digital health records have potential, their adoption in many hospitals remains limited, hindering patient safety advancements.
- Inadequate Staffing: In many wards, a lack of sufficient staff (e.g., 2 nurses for 40 patients) reduces the quality of care.
- Passive, Uninformed Patients: Cultural reverence for doctors prevents many patients from asking questions or understanding medical treatments due to low health literacy.
Way Forward
- Strengthen Data Systems: Integrating real-time data from multiple surveys (e.g., NSS, NFHS, CES) to improve patient safety monitoring and decision-making.
- Increase Public Health Spending: A focus on increasing GHE (government health expenditure) to ensure better infrastructure, adequate staffing, and improved patient care.
- Expand Patient Safety Initiatives: Extend NABH accreditation to more hospitals, making patient safety protocols a standard across the country.
- Empower Patients: Encourage patients and their families to actively participate in healthcare by asking questions, maintaining medical records, and following safe practices at home.
- Adopt Technology Solutions: Leverage AI-driven tools and QR code-based systems to reduce medication errors, ensure correct patient identification, and enhance treatment accuracy.
- Promote Cultural Shift: Shift from passive patient involvement to a more active participation where patients are encouraged to engage in discussions and make informed healthcare choices.
Conclusion
Building a culture of safety in healthcare requires the collective effort of providers, patients, families, and society. While initiatives like NABH show progress, India must address gaps in quality, staffing, and patient engagement for safer healthcare.
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18 Sep 2025
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