Celebrating Inaugural World Patient Safety Day

This September, the World Health Organisation (WHO) launched their inaugural World Patient Safety Day, a global campaign to create awareness of patient safety and to urge people to show their commitment to improving safety in healthcare.

The theme this year was ‘Patient Safety: a global health priority’ which was complimented by the slogan ‘Speak up for patient safety’ to encourage patients, health workers, policymakers, academics, researchers, professional networks, and the healthcare industry as a whole, to do just that – speak up for patient safety.

To kick start conversations in the AGPAL offices, our teams, Brisbane pictured here, donned their most striking orange attire and gathered for a morning tea. Here we discussed the importance of patient safety, the significant impact on patients and healthcare internationally, and how lucky we are in Australia to have such safe, and high-quality healthcare.

The AGPAL team in all their orange, patient safety glory!

In addition to our own morning tea, we encouraged our clients to join the celebration and spark conversations about patient safety in their own practices by holding a social media contest. With the chance to win a team lunch on us, practices from around Australia posted or sent in photos of their practice teams dressed in orange, celebrating World Patient Safety Day. It’s great to see so many teams get involved in the initiative!

Great to see practices getting involved in the action!

With their entry pulled from a bowl, a big congratulations goes to Northside Health for winning the World Patient Safety Day lunch! We look forward to hearing about your team lunch as you enjoy a well-deserved break during your busy day at the practice.

Northside Health – Winners of our World Patient Safety Day competition

As primary healthcare workers, general practice and Aboriginal Medical Services staff are the frontline for healthcare and can make a significant impact on patient safety. By raising awareness, educating staff, and implementing continuous quality improvement initiatives, we can make an impact, and further improve patient safety in Australia.
Some things that we can do to work towards greater patient safety, as recommended by the WHO, include:

• Engage patients as partners in their care
• Work together for patient safety
• Ensure continuous professional development to improve your skills and knowledge in patient safety
• Create an open and transparent safety culture in healthcare settings, and
• Encourage blame-free reporting of and learning from errors.

With these tips, we can work towards facilitating better care, and a safer healthcare environment for all! To learn more about WHO’s World Patient Safety Day, visit their website.

Thank you to all the practices that got involved in the occasion! It’s great to see so many teams passionate, and dedicated to their patients’ wellbeing.