Governments

Create an enabling environment for patient engagement for safe, rights-based and people-centred health care

• Prioritize patient safety and patient engagement in health policy agenda
  • Ensure that it applies to all health care settings where health care is provided and that it is sufficiently resourced
  • Include patients and their representatives in national governance structures and engage them in co-designing policies and service delivery
• Adopt laws for patients’ engagement and participation in co-creation of safe health care
  • Enact and implement laws recognizing patient safety as a health right
  • Create formal mechanisms for participation of patients in health care safety improvement
• Establish the principle and practice of openness and transparency throughout health care, and foster a culture of continuous learning
  • Ensure patient and family experience of harm informs the design of law, policy, education and delivery of health services
  • Develop guidance for patient reporting systems, informed consent, patient access to their medical records, and disclosure to patients of adverse events that have or could have caused inadvertent harm

Health care leaders and managers

Commit to patient and family engagement to enhance safety in your organization

• Advocate development of patient safety and patient engagement laws and policies and implement them at the facility level
  • Develop institutional standards for patient safety and patient and family engagement
  • Make services patient centred, based on the cardinal principle of “what is important for patients and families”
• Create a culture of openness and transparency and learn from patient experiences for safety improvement
  • Institute and implement policies for robust informed consent, patient access to their medical records, emergency escalation systems that patients and families can trigger, and harm disclosure
  • Create reporting mechanisms and encourage patients, families and caregivers to report harm and unsafe practices
  • Ensure that experiences of patients and families are an integral part of patient safety efforts in the health facility
• Empower patients and families for shared decision-making
  • Include patients and families – especially those with experiences of avoidable harm – in organizations’ policy- and decision-making structures and processes
  • Ensure care processes support information-sharing and joint decision-making
  • Develop information materials on clinical procedures and their risks to enhance patients’ safety awareness
  • Provide communication and patient engagement training to health and care workers and build their skills to better understand patient perspectives and concerns

Health and care workers

Engage patients and design their care with them

• Collaborate with your patients to shift the paradigm from care designed for patients to care designed with patients and promote shared decision-making
• Identify “what matters most” to patients and work with them to meet their expectations, needs and preferences
• Use every opportunity to educate patients and families about their health and health care, and maintain ongoing dialogue with them to encourage trust, and satisfaction
• Support patients in managing their own health, and train families to deliver care and report danger signs
• Practice and promote openness and transparency
  • Ensure that patients are informed about their rights and responsibilities and safeguard their rights within your facility
  • Disclose safety incidents to patients, families and caregivers in a transparent manner
• Be the voice of your patients and advocate patient and family engagement for safer care
  

Patients, families and caregivers

Be an active partner in your health care – safety starts with you!

• Play an active role in your care
  • Ask questions and request access to your medical records – you have a right to be involved and informed
  • Decide and agree on your treatment plan together with your health workers – you have a right to participate in decision-making and to give your consent
  • Voice your concerns and express your opinion
  • Seek information about any safety incidents in your care – you have a right to harm disclosure
• Contribute to making care safer for all
  • Report safety incidents and any harm you or your family member suffered during health care
  • Share your experiences and your ideas on how to make health care safer for you and everyone else
  • Participate in the design of health care – with your health worker, in your health facility, or with your local government

Patient advocates[1]

Amplify the collective voice of patients for safer care

• Facilitate sharing of information and experiences between patients, families and the health system to promote learning and prevent future patient safety events. Find new and impactful ways to tell patient stories and ensure their voices are heard
• Support patients and their families or caregivers to engage with the health system at all levels and participate in design of safe, quality and people-centred health services. Raise awareness and build your capacity to co‑design safer health systems
• Work with practitioners, administrators, and policy- and decision-makers at all levels to increase awareness of the critical role of patient engagement and create an enabling environment for partnerships for safer health care. Disseminate a patient safety rights charter and promote patient safety as a health right
• Engage with medical research and development to mainstream patients’ voices. Guide research and development to deliver what matters to patients by providing patients’ perspectives throughout the design, conduct, and evaluation of studies and projects