Institute for Healthcare Improvement's Declaration to Advance Patient Safety (May 2022)

Summary

In May 2022, the National Steering Committee for Patient Safety (NSC) issued the Declaration to Advance Patient Safety to urge health care leaders across the continuum of care to recommit to advancing patient and workforce safety.

The NSC called for immediate action to address safety from a total systems approach, as presented in the National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety, and implored leaders to adopt safety as a core value and foster collective action to uphold this value.

Content

To achieve the vision of health care that is safe, reliable, and free from harm, the Declaration to Advance Patient Safety calls for health care leaders to take collective and coordinated action by doing the following:

1. Review the 17 recommendations and tactics to advance patient safety presented in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Safer Together: A National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety, a report that harnesses the knowledge and insights of the National Steering Committee for Patient Safety members.
2. Identify a senior sponsor and core team charged with deploying the Self-Assessment Tool, a companion resource to the National Action Plan, to evaluate your organisation’s current state across each of the four foundational areas, prioritised as essential to create total systems safety.
3. Establish and enact strategies, tactics, and measurement and improvement plans to meaningfully fortify and sustain your organisation’s performance in each of the four foundational areas by leveraging the Implementation Resource Guide, a companion resource to the National Action Plan.