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The World Innovation Summit for Health (Wish), a global initiative of Qatar Foundation (QF), has appointed distinguished scholar Prof Peter J Pronovost to chair its patient safety forum. |
Prof Pronovost, senior vice president for patient safety and quality, and director of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at John Hopkins Medicine, the US, will oversee the work of a team of international experts.
Patient safety is one of seven research work streams to be presented at the 2015 Wish Summit in February in Qatar, where leading international health experts will discuss innovative solutions to some of the most pressing global health challenges.
The seven forums will collate and consider the latest evidence to produce practical recommendations for health policymakers around the world. The Wish Summit will play a key role in addressing and finding solutions to the most pressing health issues, in line with QF’s mission of launching initiatives towards fundamental healthcare development and reform.
The issues addressed by the forum will include an exploration of how a systems integration approach can improve patient safety; how health systems can be designed, procured and delivered to enhance patient safety, experience and outcomes; the human and economic costs of safety failings and learning from other high-risk sectors such as aerospace and defence. The forum will publish an evidence-based report for discussion at the 2015
summit.
Prof Pronovost said: “Patient safety is – or should be – one of the fundamental building blocks of any healthcare system. However, incidences of avoidable harm remain high throughout the world and healthcare still has much to do to match the safety record of other high-risk industries, such as civil
aviation or defence.”
Lord Darzi of Denham, executive chair of Wish and director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London, said: “In most cases, patient safety failures involve avoidable harm. While raising standards is the responsibility of the entire global healthcare community; it is also a major policy issue. That is why Wish has decided to tackle patient safety this year.”
With the appointment of Prof Pronovost, Wish aims to examine how incidences of avoidable harm to patients can be reduced. It will review different approaches to improving patient safety, and provide recommendations enabling policy makers to better prioritise changes that will improve safety, experience and outcomes for patients.
