Last update:
09-Oct-2018

Patient safety is a major challenge for contemporary health care systems. Hospitals of the 21st century constitute a unique combination of sophisticated life-saving technology and potential life-threatening error. Researchers across the world have reached the conclusion that health care systems are not as safe as they should be, nor as they could be. This paper analyses the causes of errors in health care and the role of education and training of health professionals in the prevention and control of error. Error is the failure to complete our act as planned or the use of an incorrect plan to carry out a specific aim. The most common errors documented in health care are side effects of drug administration, injuries, falls, and bedsores. The most common cause of error is poor communication among health care professionals, who have been trained to work not as a team but as individuals. Defective systems and processes lead people to make mistakes or fail to prevent error. A safe health care system should be designed as one that prevents mistakes at all levels. Although patient safety is such an important element of health care, there is little systematic training of health professionals on safety procedures. The health science faculties have a responsibility to provide appropriate educational experiences for their graduates to equip them to offer safe patient-centered and evidence-based health care, as members of an interdisciplinary health care team. Education plays a vital role in the establishment of safe health care systems.

Key words: Education, Health care professionals, Patient safety, Safe practice, Safety culture.