Implementing Patient Safety Improvements
Frontline Implementation
Official Launches
Hospital Partnerships have held a series of Advocacy Days providing opportunities to raise awareness, build wider engagement and share information and plans for implementation. Representatives of Ministries of Health, patient and consumer organizations, hospital leaders and staff, as well as wider health care system representatives have gathered to learn about patient safety and the work taking place in their local ‘APPS’ Hospital.
Technical Improvements
Local production of alcohol-based handrub in several of the APPS hospitals in the African Region has been a key step in their infection prevention and control plans. This includes the procurement of necessary equipment and ensuring the right environment has been established for safe and effective production to occur on site. Local production, in line with the WHO Patient Safety Hand Hygiene Guidelines (link below), allow hospitals to produce and supply their own hospital with the key resource to instigate an effective hand hygiene programme and begin to address infection prevention and control issues. Initial training of hospital pharmacists has been undertaken in some of the hospitals and further training is currently being planned.
Several partnership hospitals are also rolling out the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist (link below) Partnerships are addressing the challenges of implementation across both the African and European Partner – sharing experiences and lessons learned. Mechanisms for effective evaluation are being put in place and partnerships are undertaking base line assessments for infection prevention and control.
Several partnerships are also beginning to consider areas of research potential and the importance of sharing their learning more broadly with their national health care systems – working with Ministry of Health officials and other local health care leaders.
Related documents
Partnership Communications
Key to successful partnerships is ensuring that mechanisms are in place for continual, sustainable and effective communication across partnerships in Africa and Europe. Partnerships have established hospital steering groups for the programme; effective communication mechanisms with their partnership hospitals tailored to their circumstances, including regular facilitated partnership calls and the use of web based tools such as Skype.
Sharing Knowledge and Experience
Several on-site partnership visits have taken place to meet clearly defined objectives These have been both to African partners and to European partners. Week long visits have included staff training on patient safety, hand hygiene, implementing the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist, building organizational momentum and planning the next stages of implementation.