A call for the application of patient safety culture in medical humanitarian action: a literature review (December 2021)

Summary

This literature review in the Journal of Patient Safety aimed to assess lessons learned on patient safety in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, and to assess whether they can be applied to humanitarian medicine.

The authors concluded that safety culture and strategies will need to be adapted to address different intervention contexts and to respond to the concerns and expectations of humanitarian staff. As there is no overarching authority for the sector, medical humanitarian organisations, have a major responsibility in the development of a general patient safety policy in all their operations.