Patient Safety Awareness Week

3/5/2010

The National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) will kick off the 8th annual Patient Safety Awareness Week on March 7, 2010, in a concerted effort to raise awareness of patient safety initiatives, improve the quality of health care, and strengthen alliances between patients, families and their healthcare providers. The 2010 theme – Let’s Talk! Healthy Conversations for Safer Health Care – focuses on communication. Healthy communication between provider, patient and families helps ensure treatment adherence and reduces unnecessary care. “Clear and open communication between patients and their healthcare providers is fundamental to effective patient engagement, a key to safe care,” said Diane C. Pinakiewicz, president of the NPSF. As part of Patient Safety Awareness Week, The Joint Commission is providing a Patient Safety IQ Quiz (www.surveymonkey.com/s/Patient_IQ_Quiz) for the public. The quiz is a fun way that patients can test their knowledge about how to prevent infection, what they need to know about their medicines, how to talk to their doctor, and other important safety tips. Everyone who takes the quiz will be entered in a drawing to win one of 20 of The Joint Commission’s patient safety books, “You: The Smart Patient” or the new “The Smart Parent’s Guide.” The quiz contains 11 questions and will be available through March 13. To learn more about Patient Safety Awareness Week, visit www.npsf.org.