Exploring patient participation in reducing health-care-related safety risks

Exploring patient participation in reducing health-care-related safety risks
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ChApTER 8.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Diana Delnoij, Valentina Hafner
Introduction
Patient safety is an issue of increasing concern in health care systems all over the world.
It involves in the same time various actors, with the patient/consumer at its core. Only an
informed and empowered consumer can actively contribute to improve communication as well
as health care outcomes (WHO Regional Office for Europe, unpublished data, 2009).
The aim of this report is to identify means to improve patient safety by articulating
patients’ rights and enhancing patient empowerment. Several dimensions of health
care provision have been touched upon, ranging from technical and legal to social
dimensions. We have tried to unravel the causal mechanisms along which legislation and
various charters describing patients’ rights at macro level lead to patient empowerment
and participation, and how this empowerment and participation in turn can help
organizations at meso level, individual patients and professionals in the primary process
(micro level) to improve the safety of health care delivery.
Patient roles in strengthening patient safety have been explored, including:
» involvement in monitoring and reporting adverse events;
» checking and double-checking that they are given the correct medication, in the
correct dose and at the correct time;
» being informed about what to expect in terms of surgery;
» being encouraged to report any adverse event or complication;
» observing and asking staff about hand washing; and
» ensuring they have been properly identified prior to treatments.
The previous chapters focused on the following topics.
» In Chapter 2, an overview of international documents and guidelines from the
CoE, the EU and WHO with respect to legal aspects of patient safety were
presented. Patients’ rights that are directly or indirectly related to patient safety were
described in some detail and contextual factors that may influence the effectiveness
of legal interventions were analysed.
» Chapter 3 included discussion of a study of hand hygiene in Bulgaria. Results
were presented from a survey of patients in two Bulgarian hospitals that explored
patients’ knowledge of HAIs and their willingness to participate in hand hygiene
compliance in health care.
» In Chapter 4, the focus was on blood transfusion safety in France. It presented:
an overview of the literature in this field; a description of the legal rights and
responsibilities of the different actors involved in blood transfusion; and the results