World Patient Safety Day is an opportunity to raise public awareness and foster collaboration between patients, health workers, policymakers and health care leaders to improve patient safety.

This year’s theme is “Improving Diagnosis for Patient Safety” with the slogan “Get it right, make it safe!”, highlighting the critical importance of correct and timely diagnosis in ensuring patient safety and improving health outcomes.

A diagnostic error is the failure to establish a correct and timely explanation of a patients’ health problem, which can include delayed, incorrect, or missed diagnoses, or a failure to communicate that explanation to the patient. With most adults likely to face at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, substantial work needs to be done to improve the safety of diagnostic processes.

Check out the “It’s Safe to Ask: Medical Test Follow-Up” brochure below that can be used to improve timely communication about diagnostic tests with clients/patients/residents and their families.

For more information, please visit: World Patient Safety Day, 17 September 2024: “Improving diagnosis for patient safety” (who.int)