Teaching patient safety is key to achieving safe, people-centred health systems
WHO
The Polish Ministry of Health and the WHO Country Office, together with the National Centre for Quality Assessment in Health Care and the Association of Medical Insurance, launched a patient safety curriculum in Poland. Full-day sessions on the extensive programme took place at the Ministry of Health in Warsaw on 24–25 October 2016, providing training to representatives of 14 medical universities. These representatives were recruited from across the country and included doctors, dentists, nurses, midwives and pharmacologists.
The comprehensive WHO Multi-professional Patient Safety Curriculum Guide promotes the need for patient safety education and assists universities and schools in the fields of dentistry, medicine, midwifery, nursing and pharmacy. It also supports the training of all health care professionals on priority patient safety concepts and practices.
Dr Marek Tombarkiewicz and Dr Piotr Warczynski, both undersecretaries of state at the Ministry of Health, opened the workshop. They underlined the importance of introducing patient safety as early as possible in universities’ teaching schemes as an investment in future quality of care.
Dr Paulina Karwowska, Head of the WHO Country Office in Poland, said during opening the address: “Patient safety has been for many years a leading priority for collaboration between WHO and the Ministry of Health, which has resulted in introducing such important initiatives as a surgical checklist, hand hygiene and medication reconciliation.”
Dr Agnes Leotsakos, who has extensive experience teaching patient safety and contributed to the development of the WHO Multi-professional Patient Safety Curriculum Guide, ran the workshop. Dr Leotsakos was supported by Dr Konstantinos Petsanis, Professor Brian Capstick, who presented case studies from the United Kingdom, and by Ms Basia Kutryba, leader of the project on behalf of the National Centre for Quality Assessment in Health Care.
Workshop participants included WHO experts, local health care professionals and representatives of the Chamber of Doctors and Dentists, the Chamber of Nurses and Midwives, the Ministry of Health, the National Centre for Quality Assessment in Health Care, the Patients’ Rights Ombudsman, medical universities, medical institutes and scientific societies.
