[Re: https://www.hifa.org/dgroups-rss/spotlight-patient-safety-and-ncds-14-re... ]
Dear Jo Anne,
Thank you for your message.
You say "I am thinking that perhaps we should be cautious about reinventing a wheel or duplicating other platforms and ongoing work that have been addressing this important concern. What resources are already available; where are the gaps? How can HIFA forum add value and/or extend dissemination? For example, via partnering or following up via activities of the WHO integrated health services/patient safety initiative and Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030; ISQua, etc."
Please can you say a bit more about this so that I can understand your concerns better?
In terms of duplicating other platforms, HIFA is primarily a community of practice. The most important community of practice for patient safety is the Global Patient Safety Network, which is run by the WHO department that sponsored this HIFA Spotlight. I would strongly recommend for all with an interest in patient safety join this community. You can read more about it here: https://www.who.int/teams/integrated-health-services/patient-safety/netw...
I would agree that if HIFA was primarily about patient safety, this would be duplicative. However our primary lens is not patient safety, but evidence-informed policy and practice. One of the key points that has been made this week is that a failure of evidence-informed practice is a hugely important but unrecognised cause of unsafe care. I noted in a message earlier today that the Global Patient Safety Action Plan appears to ignore this aspect, and have invited HIFA members to comment.
We work in official relations with WHO and we prepared this HIFA Spotlight with WHO patient safety staff. We agreed that HIFA can bring value that complements the Global Patient Safety Network, if only for one week (14-20 September). Namely, the HIFA community can bring additional experience and understanding around the four guiding questions for this discussion:
1. What is unsafe care and what is its local and global impact?
2. What are the main causes of unsafe care for people living with NCDs? To what extent is access to reliable healthcare information a determinant of patient safety?
3. What can be done to better understand and improve health systems for safer care for people living with NCDs?
4. How can we better support patients and primary and facility-based health workers to deliver safe care?
The original remit for this Spotlight was to look specifically at the role of reliable healthcare information in patient safety. We were very fortunate to have one of the world's leading experts on patient safety, Charles Vincent, join our working group in the later stages. He suggested we broaden the remit of this Spotlight to include core patient safety issues in addition to the role of access to reliable healthcare information. We recognised that knowledge and understanding of patient safety issues can be considered part of HIFA's goal to ensure that every person and every health worker needs to be aware of these issues (in addition to clinical knowledge) in order to protect their own health and the health of others. And we agreed to broaden the remit as represented by the four questions above.
There are several other initiatives in patient safety:
- Global Patient Safety Collaborative (GPSC)
- Africa Patient Safety Initiative
- WHO Patients for Patient Safety Network
- African Partnerships for Patient Safety (APPS)
There alre also several WHO Collaborating Centres with expertise in patient safety.
HIFA does not currently have links with these initiatives (apart from WHO and the Global Patient Safety Network). If any HIFA members can help us to establish links, we would be grateful.
I agree, Jo Anne, the key is not to duplicate but to collaborate.
To collaborate, and to share our individual experience and expertise. I invite you and others to continue sharing by email to: hifa@hifaforums.org
With thanks, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org