Patient Safety Movement Foundation: Community Survey Research Report (May 2020)

Summary

The Patient Safety Movement Foundation (PSMF) surveyed their community members from April 20 to May 4, 2020 and share the results in this report.

They collected a total of 195 complete responses worldwide. This included 71% respondents from the US, 13% from EMEA, 7% from Mexico, 4% from the rest of LATAM, 3% from JAPAC, 2% from Canada, and 1% from India. The community sample also comprised of approximately a quarter of nurses, a quarter of other medical professionals (doctors, pharmacists), and significant representation of administrators, vendors, advocates, quality control, as well as many other backgrounds and occupations. 

Content

Key findings

1. We are in a public health crisis, but only our community connects it to underlying deficiencies with the healthcare system.

The coronavirus pandemic is top of mind for everyone we polled, including those in our community and the general public. However, not surprisingly, our community has a much broader concern over access and availability of healthcare, at more than double than the general public. This is chiefly due to misgivings our community feels about how well the healthcare system serves patients on a range of areas, from safety to putting patients first to being generally accessible. 

2. Bringing healthcare workers into patient safety meets the moment and expands the coalition

Due to the pandemic, healthcare worker health has become a top concern. Now is the time to bring medical professionals into the patient safety conversation as they rank as one of the most important groups of people we should be caring for today. Utilizing this moment to bring them into the conversation as part of patient safety can help mobilize the public and our community in ways we haven’t seen previously

3. The community strives for preventing all medical error, not just that which leads to harm

Even though medical error is a pervasive issue, there is optimism that error can be prevented and that we can make that change happen. Among our community 80% believe all or three-quarters of medical error can be prevented. 

4. The patient safety movement needs to carry forth a message to the broader public for why incentivizing best practices leads to better outcomes and system-wide improvements in safety

Our community believes providing incentives to organizations and people that practice good patient safety (51%) is more impactful than holding organizations accountable through punitive action (41%). This is flipped from the general public, where a majority say the better way of reducing harm is holding individual organization and people accountable.