World Patient Safety Day 2023: Empowering Patients in their Care Journey

World Patient Safe­ty Day, estab­lished in 2019 by the 72nd World Health Assem­bly, is cel­e­brat­ed on 17th Sep­tem­ber to raise aware­ness on the impor­tance of  patient safe­ty. It also serves as a call to have ini­tia­tives in place to reduce patient harm and to empha­size the role that every­one can play in improv­ing patient safe­ty.

This year’s theme, Engag­ing Patients for Patient Safe­ty apt­ly cap­tures the par­a­digm shift in health­care today. Accord­ing to the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion, patient safe­ty is not just the respon­si­bil­i­ty of health­care providers, but a col­lec­tive effort that involves patients, fam­i­lies, and com­mu­ni­ties, as echoed though the slo­gan “Ele­vate the voice of patients!” push­es for a holis­tic approach where patients play an active role in their care, con­tribut­ing their voice, con­cerns, expec­ta­tions, and pref­er­ences to cre­ate a health­care envi­ron­ment that val­ues safe­ty, patient-cen­tered­ness, trust­wor­thi­ness, and equi­ty.

Patient safe­ty is everyone’s respon­si­bil­i­ty. It is about how we work togeth­er, empha­siz­ing the need for bet­ter patient safe­ty prac­tices to pre­vent harm and make sure that patients get the best pos­si­ble care.

One sig­nif­i­cant con­cern in the mod­ern health land­scape is self-med­ica­tion, a glob­al pub­lic health issue with preva­lence rates sky­rock­et­ing to 92%. Cou­pled with coun­ter­feit drugs and unreg­u­lat­ed med­ical prod­ucts, there’s an esca­lat­ed risk of adverse drug reac­tions. This is where the sci­ence of phar­ma­covig­i­lance steps in. Phar­ma­covig­i­lance, by mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­at­ing the effects of med­i­cines and vac­cines, ensures the mass­es are shield­ed from poten­tial drug-relat­ed prob­lems.

It is note­wor­thy to men­tion a remark­able ini­tia­tive in the realm of phar­ma­covig­i­lance from Africa: The Phar­ma­covig­i­lance Elec­tron­ic Report­ing Sys­tem (PvERS). Devel­oped through a part­ner­ship between Intel­liSOFT Con­sult­ing and the Phar­ma­cy and Poi­sons Board of Kenya, PvERS is the con­ti­nen­t’s first dig­i­tal health solu­tion com­pat­i­ble with Vigi­flow, which is man­aged by the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion at the Upp­sala Mon­i­tor­ing Cen­tre (UMC). PvERS pro­vides an inno­v­a­tive plat­form for report­ing adverse effects from phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts, flawed health prod­ucts, and immu­niza­tion. Avail­able to both the gen­er­al pub­lic and health­care providers, it empha­sizes the core mes­sage of World Patient Safe­ty Day: the need for patients to be proac­tive in their health­care.

PvERS, devel­oped by Intel­liSOFT Con­sult­ing, serves as a tes­ta­ment to the poten­tial of dig­i­tal health solu­tions in ampli­fy­ing patient safe­ty. By allow­ing indi­vid­u­als to direct­ly report any adverse events, it pro­motes trans­paren­cy and a feed­back-dri­ven approach to health­care, enabling pro­fes­sion­als to make informed deci­sions.

As we observe World Patient Safe­ty Day, it’s cru­cial to under­stand that patient safe­ty is not a pas­sive aspi­ra­tion but an active com­mit­ment. Plat­forms like PvERS, which bring phar­ma­covig­i­lance to our fin­ger­tips, pave the way for a future where every indi­vid­ual is both a ben­e­fi­cia­ry and a con­trib­u­tor to a safe, trust­wor­thy, and equi­table health­care sys­tem.

With con­tin­u­ous advance­ments and col­lab­o­ra­tions like PvERS, we can look for­ward to a world where every patient is empow­ered, informed, and engaged in their care jour­ney, echo­ing the WHO’s call for greater patient par­tic­i­pa­tion for a safer health­care envi­ron­ment.