• World Patient Safety Day is observed on 17th September every year to increase awareness about patient safety issues.
• The theme for 2025 is to ensure ‘safe care for every newborn and child’ and the slogan is ‘patient safety from the start’.
• If you are looking to enter the health care industry in Canada, you can consider enrolling in Edison College’s Health Care Assistant Diploma program.
• This year’s theme is on newborns because adverse events occur at rates as high as 91.6% in paediatric intensive care units and up to 53.8% in general care settings, according to studies.
• Approximately one in every ten people gets injured in healthcare, and one in every seventeen hospital stays in Canada involved at least one detrimental incident (for a total of 146,000 in 2022-23).
• Over the next 30 years, it is anticipated that a patient safety incident would occur nearly every minute in Canada, with a consequent death occurring about every 13 minutes, for a total of approximately 30,000 preventable fatalities per year.

Why is World Patient Safety Day Observed?

World Patient Safety Day is observed every year on 17 September. In May 2019, all 194 World Health Organisation (WHO) member states decided to observe this day on 17 September.

The aim of this initiative was to augment the global efforts to increase public awareness about patient safety. Every year WHO comes up with a new theme and a slogan to launch a global campaign to further enhance understanding about this important issue.

The theme for 2025 is ‘safe care for every newborn and child,’ and the slogan is ‘patient safety from the start’.

This year’s theme is on newborns because newborns and children are at higher risk in so many ways. Since children are of developing age, any treatment that does not consider their age, size and the context may cause serious health problems. 

Data shows that the adverse events occur at rates as high as 91.6% in paediatric intensive care units and up to 53.8% in general care settings.

The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) campaign objectives for this year’s theme are the following:

• Raise global awareness of safety concerns in paediatric and neonatal care across all healthcare settings, with a focus on the unique needs of children, families, and carers.
• Mobilise governments, health care organisations, professional bodies, and civil society to execute long-term policies for better infant and child care as part of larger patient safety and quality initiatives.
• Empower parents, carers, and children to ensure patient safety through education, awareness, and active engagement in care.
• Advocate for more study into patient safety in paediatric and newborn care.

How Important is Patient Safety?

Patient safety is important because it can directly reduce preventable deaths. In the past, most of the talk about patient safety used to revolve around the ways through which patients were harmed, like preventable falls or unintentional infections in hospitals. In most cases, it was an easier task because we had measurable data to do the research.

However, the situation is different now. Experts say there are other kinds of harms that should be talked about, like getting the wrong treatment, receiving treatment too late, getting too much or too little treatment, etc.

There are some other harms that are often neglected, such as discrimination based on gender, mental health, body type, racism, age, religion, social class, etc.

In Canada, people have faced racism due to the colonial past, especially the First Nations, like the Inuit and Metis. All such issues and concerns need to be addressed to make minorities feel safe in this country.

Patient safety should be treated as a shared responsibility because there are several key stakeholders in it. For instance, it starts from healthcare practitioners and managers, but it goes far beyond, like patients, their families and care partners.

Where Does Canada Stand in Patient Safety?

Just like other countries, Canada is also facing problems when it comes to patient safety. In fact, the problems in this regard are expected to grow because of the growing population and expanding higher healthcare needs in Canada.

Approximately one in every ten people gets injured in healthcare, and one in every seventeen hospital stays in Canada involved at least one detrimental incident (for a total of 146,000 in 2022-23), according to the Patients for Patients Safety Canada (PFPSC).

Unfortunately, the situation of patient safety is looking grim, as per the University of Alberta research report.

Over the next 30 years, it is anticipated that a patient safety incident would occur nearly every minute in Canada, with a consequent death occurring about every 13 minutes, for a total of approximately 30,000 preventable fatalities per year, according to a report by the University of Alberta.

In Canada, about half of the incidents under patient safety only occur in four types of dangerous areas.

For instance, in 2023-2024, 47% of cases in Canada were related to health care and medications (such as bed sores or prescription errors), 31% to infections (such as surgical site infections), 18% to procedures (such as post-operative haemorrhage), and 4% to patient accidents (such as falls), according to the Canadian Institute for Health Education.

Conclusion

It is safe to conclude that patient safety will remain a big concern in Canada due to growing healthcare requirements. Let’s work together to increase awareness about these issues so that we can reduce preventable deaths.

Join the Health Care Assistant Diploma at Edison College

Edison College’s Health Care Assistant Diploma program helps students develop the core skills needed to care for clients in a variety of care settings.

The courses in this program include personal care, assisting with mobility and feeding needs, communication, assisting with medication, and clinical skills related to palliative and acute care.

This program prepares students for diverse opportunities in the health care field.

The graduates of this health care assistant certificate program can work in a variety of health care environments, such as acute care hospitals, long-term care facilities, group homes, assisted living facilities, and in the community providing home care.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us now to learn more.

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