ISLAMABAD – September 17 will mark World Patient Safety Day, a global initiative aimed at improving awareness and collaboration among patients, healthcare professionals, policymakers, and leaders to advance patient safety.

This year’s theme, “Improving Diagnosis for Patient Safety,” emphasizes the crucial role of accurate and timely diagnosis in safeguarding patient health and enhancing treatment outcomes. The slogan for the day, “Get it Right, Make it Safe!”, highlights the need for significant reductions in diagnostic errors through comprehensive approaches.

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls for a concerted effort to minimize diagnostic mistakes by incorporating diverse strategies. These strategies should include a systems-based approach, consideration of human factors, and active participation from patients, their families, healthcare workers, and leaders.

Recommended actions involve conducting thorough patient history evaluations, performing detailed clinical examinations, improving access to diagnostic tests, and employing technology to track and learn from diagnostic mistakes.

Accurate diagnosis is essential for identifying health issues and determining appropriate treatment. Diagnostic errors—such as delayed, incorrect, or missed diagnoses, or failures in communication—can severely impact patient safety.

To enhance diagnostic safety, both systemic and cognitive factors must be addressed. Systemic issues include organizational weaknesses such as poor communication, heavy workloads, and ineffective teamwork. Cognitive factors involve clinician training, experience, biases, fatigue, and stress.

One of the key goals of World Patient Safety Day 2024 is to empower patients and their families to actively engage with healthcare providers to improve diagnostic procedures. The event also aims to integrate diagnostic safety into patient safety policies and practices, in line with the Global Patient Safety Action Plan (2021–2030).

This Global Action Plan stresses the importance of safe diagnostic practices and encourages nations to implement strategies to reduce errors. Diagnostic errors are a significant concern, contributing to approximately 16% of preventable harm in healthcare systems. With most adults likely to encounter at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, extensive efforts are needed to enhance the accuracy and safety of diagnostic practices.

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