September 17: World Patient Safety Day

September 17, 2022

World Patient Safety Day observed on September 17, 2022.

The objective of the World Patient Safety Day is to raise global awareness about different safety measures that need to be taken to ensure patient safety.
It aims to increase public engagement in patient safety and create action plans to address issues that cause harm to patients.
On this occasion, patients, caregivers, doctors, healthcare workers, healthcare leaders and advocates take part in events that increase public awareness about patient-centric care and encourage patient safety at the international level.
The World Patient Safety Day came as the result of the 72^nd World Health Assembly’s adoption of a resolution on “Global Action on Patient Safety” in 2019.
The aim of the resolution was to strengthen global healthcare systems.
2022 marks the 4^th edition of the World Patient Safety Day.
The theme for this year is ‘Medication Safety’, with the slogan being ‘Medication Without Harm’.
The theme focuses on raising awareness about the medication error and unsafe medication practices, which would cause adverse health consequences, disabilities and deaths.

World Patient Safety Day seeks to promote drug safety and the create awareness about the burden caused by medical errors and unsafe medications.
This is significant as unsafe medication practices and medication errors are costing approximately 42 million USD worldwide every year.
In low and middle income countries, including the WHO South-East Asia Region, patient harm caused by unsafe care has resulted in around 134 million adverse events a year, resulting in about 2.6 million deaths.
Medication errors are caused by weak healthcare systems and human factors like fatigue, poor environmental conditions or staff shortages.
To address this issue, the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021-2030 was adopted to promote policies, strategies and actions to remove avoidable risks and harm to patients and healthcare workers.