World Patient Safety Day
17th September 2022
Medication Safety
Medication Without Harm
The World Patient Safety Day is a campaign for all stakeholders in the health care system to work together and share engagement to improve patient safety.
Engagement for World Patient Day 2022
#PatientSafety #WorldPatientSafetyDay
Photo Credits: Prof. Kama Akinori, Gunma University, Japan, WHO Collaborating Centre; Dr. Ahmed G. Newera, Saudi Arabia; Dr Olabisi Ogunbase, Maternal and Child Centre, Ajah, Eti-Osa, Nigeria; Ghassan Shahrour, Arab Human Security Network
World Patient Safety Day 2022
Every person around the world will, at some point in their life, take medications to prevent or treat illness. However, medications sometimes cause serious harm if incorrectly stored, prescribed, dispensed, administered or if monitored insufficiently.
Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are a leading cause of avoidable harm in health care across the world. Medication errors occur when weak medication systems and human factors such as fatigue, poor environmental conditions or staff shortages affect the safety of the medication use process. This can result in severe patient harm, disability and even death.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has significantly exacerbated the risk of medication errors and associated medication-related harm. It is in this context that ‘Medication Safety’ has been selected as the theme for World Patient Safety Day 2022, with the slogan ‘Medication Without Harm’.
World Patient Safety Day is one of WHO’s global public health days. It was established in 2019 by the Seventy-second World Health Assembly through the adoption of resolution WHA72.6 – “Global action on patient safety”. Its objectives are to increase public awareness and engagement, enhance global understanding, and work towards global solidarity and action by Member States to enhance patient safety and reduce patient harm.
> Learn more about the WHO Campaign
The German Coalition for Patient Safety / Aktionbündnis Patientensicherheit e.V. (APS) – Exchange of experience and networking
The focus of quality-oriented health care is patient safety. Adverse events that are the unwanted result of treatment endanger patient safety. That is why the APS advocates strategies to avoid adverse events. Many undesirable events can be traced back to errors that arise as a result of complex processes involving the division of labor. The most important tool for improving patient safety is therefore learning from mistakes together.
The German Coalition for Patient Safety – Aktionbündnis Patientensicherheit e.V. (APS) – has been contributing its experience and network as a platform for the WORLD PATIENT SAFETY DAY since 2015. The Swiss Foundation for Patient Safety and the Austrian Platform for Patient Safety joined the idea at the time so it was a multi-country day of patient safety right from the start.
The APS would also like to promote networking internationally. The website patient-safety-day.org is intended to share knowledge and experience from a large number of projects and to promote suggestions for expanding and building patient safety internationally.
The APS publishes the results of its projects and makes them available free of charge to all institutions and interested parties in the German health care system. Recommendations for action are an important practical tool. Experts consult in interdisciplinary working groups and create instructions for the implementation of security strategies. Accompanying documents (e.g. information flyers, background brochures) supplement the recommendations for action.
We are happy to provide translations of these recommendations for action on this website.
> Translations in English and Spanish – Practical Guidance
> Homepage of the Aktionbündnis Patientensicherheit e.V. (APS) [german]
> Homepage "Welttag der Patientensicherheit" (World Patient Safety Day) [german]
Practical Guidance
patient information
Tips from the German Coalition for Patient Safety on how to handle medicinal products at home
A medicine cabinet storing all medicines used by family members in a household is very common in Germany. As it contains long-term medication as well as prn-medicines, certain medicines are often stored for a relatively long period of time. Consequently, the correct storage conditions are decisive for maintaining the medicines’ effectiveness.
This 10 points demonstrate important, generally applicable aspects that you should bear in mind when storing and using your medicines. If you are uncertain, or have questions about a specific medicine, please get in touch with your pharmacist or physician.
publication recommendation
This has never been so clear as during the corona crisis. Infection prevention alone is not enough. Employees need to be protected in many ways: in their commitment to caring for patients, in decisions that need to be made, with regard to their physical and psychological stress.
Health Worker safety is patient safety!
Patient Information
Checklist for the use of health apps
In these guidelines, we offer advice to help you find the right application for you. At the end of each section, we have summarized the key facts. This checklist is intended to help you in choosing and using health apps. The idea is not to just tick all or a minimum number of boxes since these guidelines do not provide an evaluation of the medical utility or scientific accuracy of the information or recommendations provided by health apps. Under no circumstances should an app replace personal medical advice because only your doctor or therapist can evaluate which treatment is right for you.
In these online checklists, we have summarized some key facts to help you weigh up the risks and benefits associated with using health apps on mobile devices such as tablets, smart phones or wearables and also give tips for the safer usage of such apps.
Available in english, french, german and italian
Italiano – Lista di controllo per l’utilizzo di app per la salute
> Learn more – all publications Practical guidance
WHO campaign
We support the WHO international initiative for World Patient Safety Day
In May 2019, at the 72nd World Health Assembly in Geneva, 194 countries committed to recognizing patient safety as a health priority and taking steps to improve and ensure patient safety around the world. The World Health Assembly declared September 17th to be WORLD PATIENT SAFETY DAY and commissioned WHO to organize and establish September 17th as the annual World Patient Safety Day.
In 2019, the World Patient Safety Day took place for the first time worldwide – since then, the WHO has been focusing on patient safety on September 17th every year. The aim of the international initiative is to mobilize patients, health workers, policy makers, scientists, researchers, professional networks and the health industry to advocate patient safety and to increase public engagement on patient safety issues.
The WHO invites all healthcare organizations – institutions, academic organizations, companies, patient organizations – to take an active part in World Patient Safety Day and also to share their ideas on the subject of patient safety and to spread their commitment to patient safety to the general public.
Information on the international World Patient Safety Day and the WHO international campaign can be found on the World Health Organization website. You can also register your local events and campaigns on the subject of patient safety there.
- WHO Campaign
WHO Information 2022
- WHO – World Patient Safety Day 2022
- WHO – Initiative „Medication Without Harm“
- WHO – Campaign materials „Medication Without Harm“
- WHO Event Celebration Registration – Share your plans for celebrating World Patient Safety Day 2022
Join
You are welcome to share your engagement
Every organization contributing to more patient safety is welcome. Please register and we will display your logo on the cooperating organizations page on this site. Your participation is very appreciated as a motivation for more and more others. We welcome you to join us!
> Registration
> Cooperating organizations
With friendly support of the German Federal Ministry of Health