Promoting patient safety at health care institutions

Abstract

This publication includes a report of the Technical Discussions on Patient Safety held in New Delhi on 16 June 2006 in conjunction with the 43rd Meeting of the Consultative Committee for Programme Development and Management. It includes A Working Paper which describes the magnitude of the patient safety problem in the Region, WHO's response to the problem, and key concepts in patient safety including: a focus on systems rather than on blaming individuals; learning systematically from similar mistakes and minimizing risks in the future; involving patients and their communities, and translating evidence into sustainable health systems-oriented solutions. The publication delineates five priority areas of work and a set of recommendations which form the basis of a resolution adopted by the Fifty-ninth session of the Regional Committee for South-East Asia, held in Dhaka, 22-25 August 2006.