CITATION: Editorial| volume 394, issue 10202, p895, september 14, 2019
Patient safety: too little, but not too late
The Lancet
Published:September 14, 2019DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)32080-X
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32080-X/fulltext
Selected extracts:
Some of the statistics proffered by WHO [https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-patient-safety-day/2019] to highlight patient safety are striking. In low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), 134 million adverse events per year are directly attributable to unsafe care. These adverse events—including misdiagnosis, hospital-acquired infections, and medical errors—lead to 2·6 million unnecessary deaths. Worldwide, the risk of patient death because of a preventable medical accident is one in 300. One in ten patients suffer injury while receiving health care, and 15% of all hospital expenses are incurred as a result of treating failures in patient safety…
Two-thirds of all adverse events resulting from unsafe care occur in LMICs.
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This last estimate (Two-thirds of all adverse events resulting from unsafe care occur in LMICs) is interesting. One might expect the proportion to be higher, given that 84% of the world’s population lives in LMICs, and safety of care is compromised by lack of resources. On the other hand, people in high-income countries may have higher frequency of contacts with the health system. What matters is not so much the number of events, but their consequences (eg death, permanent disability).
The WHO fact sheet on Patient Safety [https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/patient-safety] cites the following reference in relation to the ‘two-thirds’ estimate: Jha AK, Larizgoitia I, Audera-Lopez C, Prasopa-Plaizier N, Waters H, W Bates D. The global burden of unsafe medical care: analytic modelling of observational studies. BMJ Qual Saf Published Online First: 18 September 2013. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2012-001748 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24048616
Best wishes, Neil
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HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of the HIFA global health campaign (Healthcare Information For All – www.hifa.org ), a global community with almost 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting on six global forums in four languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese). Twitter: @hifa_org FB: facebook.com/HIFAdotORG neil@hifa.org