Dear Frank and all,
Thank you Frank for your valuable contribution from Dominican Republic. This aligns with the previous contribution of Isaias Yosief at the Massawa Zonal Referral Hospital, Eritrea. Together this suggests these points are important through multiple levels of the health system worldwide, especially in low-resource settings.
https://www.hifa.org/dgroups-rss/spotlight-patient-safety-and-ncds-43-co...
To what extent are these priorities communicated in existing publications and manuals? One of the outcomes of this discussion could be to help ensure that such measures are better communicated.
The WHO Global Patient Safety Action Plan notes that 'Improving critical communication amongst health workers and with patients is crucial and would prevent millions of adverse events' and indicates that WHO should 'Develop tools and guidance for improving patient safety across the continuity of care, for example in primary care settings, including preventive and promotive care, and safe communication during transitions of care'.
I was unable to find specific guidance on these points in the Plan itself. So what patient safety guidance is available for primary care and facility-based care in low-resource settings? Does it cover the measures proposed by Isaias and Frank?
I have looked without success to find practical guidance on the Patient Safety section of the WHO website. A google search identified a 2022 publication from the WHO EMRO office: Patient safety assessment manual for primary care. https://iris.who.int/server/api/core/bitstreams/3841b952-040f-47a3-b303-...
I asked Copilot "can you identify a practical manual on patient safety for primary care and low-resource settings?" and its strongest recommendation was the EMRO publication noted above.
This raises a number of further questions:
1. How useful is the 'Patient safety assessment manual for primary care' - My impression was 'not very useful' but it would be good to hear from Frank and Yosief.
2. It appears there is a publication for the EMRO region and presumably other regions are unlikely to use it?
3. How does WHO HQ and regions make decisions about the publication of practical manuals for low-resource settings? It would seem that this would be best handled by HQ unless there are specific regionnal peculiarities? For example, WHO Geneva is responsible for the highly acclaimed Pocket Book of Hospital Care for Children: Guidelines for the Management of Common Childhood Illnesses - this is probably the best-known WHO practical clinical manual for low-resource settings.
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