Arabic Patient Safety Solutions Now Available

The WHO Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety encourages use of the Solutions to prevent health care-associated errors

(Oak Brook, Ill. - May 20, 2008) The World Health Organization's (WHO) World Alliance for Patient Safety and the Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety have translated nine life-saving Patient Safety Solutions into Arabic. The Solutions are also available in Chinese, English, German and Spanish.  It is anticipated that translations of the Patient Safety Solutions into more languages will be available in the coming year.

           
The Patient Safety Solutions, released in May 2007, address the issues of look-alike, sound-alike medication names; correct patient identification; hand-over communications; correct procedure at the correct body site; control of concentrated electrolyte solutions; medication accuracy; catheter and tubing misconnections; needle reuse and injection device safety; and hand hygiene.  The basic purpose of the solutions is to provide recommendations for guiding the re-design of care processes to prevent inevitable human errors from actually reaching patients. The solutions, developed as aide-memoires, offer WHO Member States recommendations on how to address specific challenges of unsafe care.

                        
In 2005, WHO designated The Joint Commission and Joint Commission International (JCI) as its Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety Solutions.  The World Alliance for Patient Safety and the Collaborating Centre have identified widespread problems and challenges to providing safe care, developed promising solutions, and vetted them through an extensive field review process that garnered feedback from health care providers, practitioners, and other experts from more than 100 countries.      

           
The Patient Safety Solutions were developed with the assistance of an International Steering Committee of patient safety experts and patient representatives, WHO technical experts, as well as Regional Advisory Councils in Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region.  A major international field review of the proposed solutions was also conducted to gather feedback from leading patient safety entities, accrediting bodies, ministries of health, international health professional organizations and practitioners, patients, and other experts.           

           
The nine solutions and the translations are available at http://www.jcipatientsafety.org/ .  Additional Patient Safety Solutions will be released later this fall.

           
A WHO Collaborating Centre is a national institution designated by the Director-General of the World Health Organization to form part of an international collaborative network carrying out activities in support of WHO's mandate for international health work and its program priorities.