WHO Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety
and High 5s Initiative

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.

Additional solutions will be unveiled each year.

High 5s Partnership

For patient safety solutions to save lives and prevent medical errors, the solutions must not only be developed and disseminated, they must also be implemented. Through the WHO Action on Patient Safety Initiative, known also as the High 5s project, the Collaborating Centre is supporting a program that will take five patient safety solutions into hospitals in six countries over the next five years. The Joint Commission and JCI, in partnership with the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety and the Commonwealth Fund, are heading up the project.

The goal of the High 5s initiative is to achieve a significant, sustained, and measurable reduction in the occurrence of these safety problems. Within the seven participating countries—Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States—a lead agency will enroll approximately 10 hospitals to implement the solutions. These hospitals will compose an international learning laboratory in which the solutions’ effect upon health care delivery and patient safety can be monitored and disseminated via a High 5s Web site. 

The 5 solution areas include: