Foundation celebrates Patient Safety Awareness Week

Did you know March 8-14 is Patient Safety Awareness Week? This is an annual recognition event intended to encourage everyone to learn more about health care safety. During this week, the DFW Hospital Council (DFWHC) Foundation will seek to advance important discussions locally, and inspire action to improve the safety of health care patients and the workforce.

Patient Safety Awareness Week serves as a dedicated time for growing awareness about patient safety and recognizing the work already being done.

Although there has been real progress made in patient safety over the past two decades, current estimates cite medical harm as a leading cause of death worldwide.

The World Health Organization estimates that 134 million adverse events occur each year due to unsafe care in hospitals resulting in some 2.6 million deaths. Additionally, some 40 percent of patients experience harm in ambulatory and primary care settings with an estimated 80 percent of these harms being preventable.

Some studies suggest that as many as 400,000 deaths occur in the U.S. each year as a result of errors or preventable harm.

“Preventing harm in health care settings is a public health concern,” said Patti Taylor, director of quality and patient safety at the DFWHC Foundation. “Everyone interacts with hospitals at some point in life. And everyone has a role to play in advancing safe health care.”

For information and a toolkit, please click here.

For additional info, you can contact Patti at ptaylor@dfwhcfoundation.org or 972-719-4900.