About us

What is patient safety?

Patient safety is a framework of organized activities that creates cultures, processes, procedures, behaviours, technologies and environments in health care that consistently and sustainably lower risks, reduce the occurrence of avoidable harm, make error less likely and reduce its impact when it does occur.

Who we are

Aligned with the global agenda for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, WHO established a flagship initiative in February 2020 entitled  “A Decade of Patient Safety 2020-2030”, to address the global call and support strategic actions in patient safety at the global, regional and national levels. The WHO flagship initiative cuts across different areas of work within the Organization, focusing on linkages between patient safety and health care safety components across the different health systems elements, and linkages with disease-specific and clinical programmes which have direct impact on patient safety and health outcomes at the point of care. 

Our vision

A world in which no one is harmed in health care and every patient receives safe and respectful care, every time, everywhere.  

What we do

The WHO Patient Safety flagship facilitates sustainable improvements in patient safety and managing risks to prevent patient harm by:

1. providing leadership and coordinating the implementation of resolution WHA72.6, through the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021-2030;
2. setting global priorities in patient safety, and designing and implementing Global Patient Safety Challenges, including, presently, the third WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge: Medication Without Harm;
3. providing strategic advice and guidance in formulating patient safety policies, legislation, strategies and plans, in close collaboration with WHO technical programmes;
4. facilitating global advocacy through campaigns and commemorations around World Patient Safety Day, on 17 September every year;
5. building patient safety leadership competencies and human resource capacity through patient safety education and training, including the development of curricula and other technical resources;
6. strengthening collaboration and building strategic partnerships, including through the WHO Global Patient Safety Network and other global knowledge-sharing platforms, developing technical resources and tools in the area of patient safety;
7. accelerating country support and capacity-building through the Global Patient Safety Collaborative;
8. engaging and empowering patients and families through the Patients for Patient Safety initiative, including building the capacity of patient safety advocates from worldwide patients' organizations;
9. improving patient safety metrics through the development of standards, indicators, data collection tools and assessments;
10. facilitating the identification of research priorities, promoting implementation research and supporting digital and innovative approaches for patient safety improvement;
11. providing strategic support to establish and implement incident reporting and learning, and surveillance systems.