World Patient Safety Day 2023
September 2023, Egypt – This year, World Patient Safety Day 2023 is being celebrated around the theme “Engaging patients for patient safety”, in recognition of the central role that patients, their families and caregivers play in advancing safe care, reducing harm and preventing avoidable deaths.
With the slogan “Elevate the voice of patients”, World Patient Safety Day focuses on patient engagement in health care as a key strategy for delivering people-centred health services, reducing the burden of avoidable harm, strengthening health systems, enhancing health workers’ performance, reducing health care costs, and improving patient satisfaction, quality of life and health outcomes.
Patient harm due to unsafe care is a large and growing global public health challenge, and one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide.
Globally, around one in 10 patients are harmed due to unsafe health care. More than 50% of that harm is preventable. In low, and middle-income countries alone, it is estimated that 134 million adverse events occur annually due to unsafe care in hospitals contributing to around 2.6 million deaths.
Almost half of the harm is attributed to medications, followed by invasive clinical procedures, surgical procedures, health care infections and diagnosis.
“Every year, large numbers of patients are harmed or die because of unsafe health care, especially in low- and