For World Patient Safety Day 2023, AHRQ Recognizes the Imperative of Engaging Patients in Their Care

The theme of World Patient Safety Day 2023, observed Sept. 17, is "Engaging Patients for Patient Safety," in recognition of the crucial role played by patients, families, and caregivers in receiving the safest possible healthcare. Indeed, we are trying to address their health concerns and "dis-ease" in providing care in the first place. Our consumers' concerns must be at the center of everything we do.

When it comes to effective patient-provider communication, significant challenges persist. For example, on average, patients are interrupted by their providers in the first 11 to 18 seconds of telling their diagnostic story. It is estimated that 79 percent of diagnostic errors are related to the patient-clinician encounter, and up to 56 percent are related to miscommunication.

These communication challenges are compounded by today's fragmented healthcare environment, one in which clinicians and patients grapple with the pressures of needing to do more in less time, the confusion that technology can introduce, and the stress experienced by healthcare workers often dealing with trauma and mass casualty events outside and even inside the hospital and clinic walls.

In addition, communication challenges are amplified by unequal access to healthcare services for people of color and other disadvantaged communities. More is at stake when opportunities to receive care are limited.

Not surprisingly, when patients are engaged as partners in their care rather than passive participants, it can lead to measurable improvements in safety, patient satisfaction, quality, and improved health outcomes.

On Sept. 19, at the 7th Annual Patient Experience Symposium in Boston, I’ll be pleased to highlight strategies and resources developed by AHRQ to help patients, families, caregivers, and health professionals work together as members of a cohesive healthcare team that can promote improvements in care. These tools include:

• Guide to Improving Patient Safety in Primary Care Settings by Engaging Patients and Families is a compilation of evidence-based best practices for improving patient safety through patient, family, and caregiver engagement. It provides primary care practices with strategies to elicit patient concerns and communicate effectively, including the safe use of medications.
• Guide to Patient and Family Engagement in Hospital Quality and Safety describes critical opportunities for hospitals to create partnerships between patients and families around the same goals and addresses real-world challenges through strategies developed, implemented, and evaluated with the insights and suggestions of patients, family members, clinicians, hospital staff, and hospital leaders.
• Patient and Family Engagement for Perinatal Safety: AHRQ Safety Program for Perinatal Care helps labor and delivery units improve patient safety, team communication, and quality of care for mothers and their newborns. It builds on the knowledge gained from AHRQ's Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) and the TeamSTEPPS^® teamwork system.
• Safer Together: A National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety provides clear direction that healthcare leaders, delivery organizations, and associations can use to reduce harm across the continuum of care. The plan shares the collective insights of the 27 member organizations of the National Steering Committee for Patient Safety, convened in 2018 by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and AHRQ.
• Toolkit for Engaging Patients to Improve Diagnostic Safety promotes enhanced communication and information sharing within the patient-provider encounter. This toolkit is designed to help patients, families, and health professionals work together as partners to improve diagnostic safety.
• AHRQ's QuestionBuilder App, available in both English and Spanish, is designed to help patients and caregivers prepare for medical appointments and maximize their visits with providers. Questions for providers can be saved to a calendar appointment or sent to any email address to easy reference during medical visits.

We know that we can save more lives by working collaboratively and that by working together, we can create health systems that ensure patients and those who care for them are truly free from harm.

On World Patient Safety Day and every day, we must continue emphasizing patient safety as a core value and embrace effective engagement with everyone who has a stake in healthcare safety—especially patients, caregivers, and their families.

Dr. Valdez is director of AHRQ.

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