World Patient Safety Day: WHO's Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh calls for addressing unsafe medication practices

Geneva: World Health Organization Regional Director Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh on Saturday called for addressing unsafe medication practices and medication errors on the occasion of World Patient Safety Day.
"Throughout the COVID-19 response we have continued to conduct training on adverse event reporting and follow up and have also carried out sanitization training on the new global patient safety action plan," said WHO Regional Director. She advocated and supported countries of the region to take up a systems approach to promote safe medication practices with a focus on several key areas.
These critical areas included - ensuring policy-makers can establish patient safety, incident reporting and learning systems, while at the same time, monitoring and evaluating impact; empowering health care leaders and facility managers to develop and implement standard operating procedures (SOPs) for safe medication use, while also increasing health workers training; enabling health workers to stay updated on safe medication practices, including through key resources such as the 'five-moments of medication safety tool' and encouraging both health professionals and patients to be aware of and act on WHO's - know, check, and ask protocol.
"Today, on World Patient Safety Day, let us continue to accelerate towards our region and world in which no one is harmed in healthcare and bear every patient receives safe and respectful care - every time, everywhere," said Singh.
September 17 is one of the World Health Organization's (WHO) global public health days called World Patient Safety Day. It was established in 2019 by the 72nd World Health Assembly through the adoption of resolution WHA 72.6 - 'Global Action on Patient Safety.'
Every year, World Patient Safety Day is observed under a specific theme. This year, the theme of World Patient Safety Day 2022 is 'Medication Safety' along with the slogan 'Medication Without Harm' with a call to action to 'Know, Check & Ask'. Medication errors and unsafe practices can lead to severe patient harm, disabilities, and deaths.
The day brings together patients, families, caregivers, communities, health workers, healthcare leaders, and policy-makers to show their commitment to patient safety. Empower and encourage patients, caregivers and family members to avoid medication errors, ensure safe use of medicines, and prevent patient harm. Advocate immediate action to promote drug safety and raise global awareness about the significant burden of medication errors and unsafe medication practices. (ANI)