WHO Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety Solutions

In 2005, the World Health Organization designated The Joint Commission and Joint Commission International as the WHO Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety Solutions. Recognized as a leader in patient safety, the Joint Commission promotes and provides for the delivery of safe, high-quality care through its standards, sentinel event database, Sentinel Event Alert, prevention of patient care hand-over errors, Speak Up^TM programs and the National Patient Safety Goals.

As the only WHO Collaborating Centre dedicated solely to patient safety, The Joint Commission and JCR/JCI further advance the entire continuum of patient safety including principles related to system design and redesign, product safety, safety of services, and environment of care, as well as offering proactive solutions for patient safety, whether based on empirical evidence, hard research or best practices.

Solutions to Improve Patient Safety

Each year preventable medical errors needlessly harm millions of patients around the world. From the developing nations to the most advanced in delivering health care services, health care errors are a serious problem. In fact, 1 in 10 patients around the world is affected by medical errors.

To address this global problem, the WHO Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety Solutions identified nine of the most common medical errors and developed patient safety solutions to prevent them. These solutions were unveiled in Washington, DC, at a news conference held in May 2007 and offer WHO member states a major new resource to assist their hospitals in avoiding preventable deaths and injuries.

The Patient Safety Solutions address the issues of look-alike, sound-alike medication names; patient identification; communication during patient handovers; performance of correct procedure at correct body site; control of concentrated electrolyte solutions; assuring medication accuracy at transitions in care; avoiding catheter and tubing misconnections; single use of injection devices; and improved hand hygiene to prevent health-care associated infection.

Click the links below to download the Patient Safety Solutions:

Patient Safety Solutions - English

Patient Safety Solutions - Arabic

Patient Safety Solutions - Chinese

Patient Safety Solutions - German

Patient Safety Solutions - Spanish