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2021 Patient Safety Awareness Week

2021 Patient Safety Awareness Week

Patient Safety Awareness Week 2021 brings focus to the work of health care organizations and personnel to maintain the safety of patients. Working toward zero harm should be the aim of all hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers, and Patient Safety Week helps everyone focus on this important consideration. Unfortunately, preventable medical errors is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. The Patient Safety Authority in Pennsylvania receives over a quarter million reports of incidents and serious events. As a result of the obstacles to bringing meritorious medical liability claims, many of the preventable medical errors go uncompensated.

Through various campaigns and attempts to raise awareness during the week of March 14-20, healthcare organizations hope to spark discussions and actions to improve the safety of the entire healthcare system, leading to better outcomes for patients and everyone involved.

Importance of Advocating for Patient Safety

According to the World Health Organization, 2.6 million deaths annually are related to adverse events in hospitals and clinics. Avoiding many of these deaths would likely be possible with an increased focus on and awareness of patient safety.

Many preventable deaths occur in hospitals in low-income countries. However, this does not excuse the fact that sometimes the errors in the American medical healthcare system puts us in the category of third world nations. As noted above, preventable medical errors is one of the leading causes of death in the United States.

Promoting Safety for Everyone

In addition to advocating for patient safety, Patient Safety Awareness Week also focuses on the safety of caregivers and members of the healthcare workforce. Nurses, doctors, and other medical personnel often place their own health and mental well-being on the line in an effort to keep their patients as safe and healthy as possible. This issue has moved to the forefront during the COVID pandemic.

Creating a safer environment for everyone involved in the healthcare arena improves the projected outcomes for patients. When healthcare workers feel safer and protected, they are able to focus more on caring for patients properly. With proper procedures in place, nurses and doctors have confidence in the system, leading to more successful outcomes. Empowering patient rights, giving patients information and permitting them to be part of their own healthcare would be a major step in reducing the number of preventable adverse events in hospitals.

Most Common Adverse Events

Negative health effects from infections are among the most common errors in healthcare settings like hospitals and nursing homes. Some of these lead to preventable deaths. These errors often occur because of short-staffing issues and failure to have proper safeguard procedures in place. Infections also occur because of healthcare workers ignoring simple protocol, handwashing, changing out lines, and the like. Some hospitals have unsanitary and unsafe healthcare delivery systems that result in infections. Infections are the leading cause of the high cost of healthcare because of the enormous and sometimes unsustainable cost of antibiotics to fight infections. Thanks to the work of many people, there have been some improvements in patient safety, but unfortunately not enough. For example, there are fewer falls in hospitals and fewer operating room explosions, but these events still occur.

Programs like Patient Safety Week help to promote awareness of these issues. The hope is that healthcare organizations and administrations will pay greater attention to these types of issues going forward.

Through the work of many people, improvements in patient safety have occurred regularly in the past few decades. However, more needs to occur to continue moving toward a zero-harm future for patients.

Understanding the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority

The Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority (PSA) works hard to study ways to keep patients safer throughout healthcare facilities in the state. The PSA gathers extensive information on patent safety, using its data to try to improve procedures and conditions. Unfortunately, the Patient Safety Authority needs to do much more. It has become, to some extent, a cheerleader for the hospitals and a fraternal organization. The Patient Safety Authority needs to exercise independent oversight and to report the many infrastructure failures to the Department of Health, which rarely occurs. The Patient Safety Authority also needs to be more robust in terms of encouraging and accepting whistleblower claims, which is part of its legislative mandate.

Through the study of serious events and incidents at healthcare facilities in the state, the PSA seeks to understand trends that may indicate preventable errors in the healthcare system.

Working Hard To Improve Patient Safety

Cliff Rieders, of the Rieders, Travis, Dohrmann, Mowrey, Humphrey & Waters law firm, serves as an advocate for patient safety and has for many years. He played a role in formulating the law that led to the creation of the PSA. Cliff Rieders was the first senate-appointee to the Patient Safety Authority and served in that capacity for over 15 years, through both democratic and republican administrations.

Mr. Rieders has worked with healthcare leaders throughout the state for many years. He emphasizes the need to speak with young doctors about the importance of patient safety, setting the tone for the future.

He is a nationally board-certified trial lawyer with extensive experience in the area of medical malpractice. He wrote numerous textbooks on malpractice, while also receiving awards for his amicus curiae (offering expertise as a neutral party to the court on certain types of cases).

Always Putting the Patients First

When it comes to the safety of patients, Mr. Rieders knows how important it is for healthcare facilities to have policies in place to guide workers in the proper steps.

When mistakes occur, holding healthcare facilities responsible for their actions can lead to positive change. If you or a loved one suffered harm because of a medical malpractice situation, contact our firm at (570) 323-8711. Count on our medical malpractice lawyer to keep your needs at the forefront of everything we do on your behalf in a malpractice case.