South East Asian regional patient safety workshop on "Clean Care is Safer Care"
Regional workshops are a critical component of the First Global Patient Safety Challenge: Clean Care is Safer Care in terms of awareness raising and the opportunity they provide for sharing and conveying of technical information and tools on hand hygiene.
The first patient safety workshop on "Clean Care is Safer Care" took place in the South East Asian region, in Bangkok, Thailand, 20-22 July 2007. More than fifty participants attended, representing 10 South East Asian countries - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste - and including UN Agencies and development partners. The general objectives of the workshop were to:
- Provide a platform for sharing technical knowledge and information relating to the prevention of health care-associated infection and particularly hand hygiene improvement;
- Develop an advocacy framework to strengthen country capacity in promoting Clean Care is Safer Care and engaging key stakeholders including the media.
The first two days of the workshop focused on current in-country experiences, new WHO approaches and tools on hand hygiene and how it might be possible to synthesize the two, and build on the strengths of both. However, what differentiated this workshop from a purely technical gathering was the focus on the criticality of awareness raising and advocacy.