The World Health Organization says nearly every person around the world will, at some point in their life, take medications to prevent or treat illness. However, medications sometimes cause serious harm if incorrectly stored, prescribed, dispensed, administered or if monitored insufficiently.
Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are a leading cause of avoidable harm in healthcare across the world.
Medication errors occur when weak medication systems and human factors such as fatigue, poor environmental conditions or staff shortages affect the safety of the medication use process.
This can result in severe patient harm, disability and even death. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has significantly exacerbated the risk of medication errors and associated medication-related harm.
It is in this context that ‘Medication Safety’ has been selected as the theme for World Patient Safety Day 2022, being held on 17 September, with the slogan ‘Medication Without Harm’.
The global campaign reaffirms the objectives of the WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge: Medication Without Harm launched by WHO in 2017.
The campaign calls on stakeholders to prioritise and take early action in key areas associated with significant patient harm due to unsafe medication practices.
These include high-risk situations, transitions of care, polypharmacy (concurrent use of multiple medications) and look-alike, sound-alike medications. The campaign will provide a special focus on the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for medication safety, considering the serious disruption in the provision of health services.
Objectives of World Patient Safety Day 2022:
- Raise global awareness of the high burden of medication-related harm due to medication errors and unsafe practices, and advocate urgent action to improve medication safety.
- Engage key stakeholders and partners in the efforts to prevent medication errors and reduce medication-related harm.
- Empower patients and families to be actively involved in the safe use of medication.
- Scale up implementation of the WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge: Medication Without Harm.
