What is Patient Safety and Why Does It Matter?

World Patient Safety Day unites governments, partners, and communities to highlight patient safety and accelerate action to minimize preventable harm in healthcare. 

In September 2026, World Patient Safety Day focuses on safe care for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), featuring the tagline “Safe care for life!” Individuals with NCDs frequently need ongoing care in various environments and for extended periods, leading to numerous moments where safety hazards may emerge, ranging from prevention and diagnosis to treatment, long-term management, and self-care. 

The main objectives of World Patient Safety Day 2026 include the following:

• Raise awareness about safety risks in long-term care for chronic illnesses.

• Engage patients and communities to co-develop safer healthcare solutions.

• Support health workers in applying safety practices during treatment and diagnosis.

• Light up landmarks and public spaces in orange on 17 September to demonstrate global solidarity.

In this context, WHO organized a working group meeting with individuals with lived experience and health workforce specialists to aid in creating the global communication campaign.

In early March 2026, 12 experts representing all WHO regions participated in the consultation. Key insights included recognizing people living with NCDs as partners rather than patients, and positioning safe care as relevant to everyday life, not only within healthcare settings.

Why is Patient Safety So Important?

"Do no harm" stands as the core principle of all healthcare services. No one ought to suffer harm in healthcare; nonetheless, there is strong evidence of a significant load of preventable patient harm worldwide in both advanced and emerging healthcare systems. This carries significant human, moral, ethical, and financial consequences.

Patient safety is defined as the absence of preventable harm to a patient and reduction of the risk of unnecessary harm associated with healthcare to an acceptable minimum. 

Within the broader health system context, it refers to a framework of organized activities that creates cultures, processes, procedures, behaviors, technologies, and environments that consistently and sustainably reduce risks, prevent avoidable harm, make errors less likely, and reduce their impact when they occur. 

What Can Endanger Patient Safety?

Patient harm resulting from safety lapses is widespread and can occur in any environment and at every level of healthcare delivery. 

System and Organizational Elements

The intricacy of medical treatments, insufficient processes and protocols, interruptions in workflow and care coordination, limitations in resources, lack of staffing, and inadequate competency training can lead to issues.

Technological Factors

Concerns regarding health information systems, including challenges with electronic health records or medication administration systems, and improper use of technology are a common cause to threaten patient safety.

Human Factors and Behavior

Communication failures among healthcare professionals, within healthcare teams, and with patients and their families, as well as poor collaboration, fatigue, burnout, and cognitive biases can create confusion and contribute to patient harm.

Patient-specific Factors

Limited health literacy, insufficient involvement, and non-adherence to treatment are other common contributing factors. 

External Influences

Lack of policies, inconsistent regulations, economic and financial pressures, and challenges related to the natural environment can also contribute to problems that may harm patients.

What Can Cause Patient Harm?

There are many outcomes that could lead to patient harm. Understanding them is very important to avoid such issues:

• Mistakes in medication administration: medication-related harm affects 1 in 30 patients in healthcare, with more than a quarter of this harm considered severe or life-threatening. Half of avoidable harm in healthcare is related to medications. 
• Surgical mistakes: over 300 million surgical procedures are performed worldwide each year. Ten percent of preventable patient harm in healthcare has been reported in surgical settings, with most resultant adverse events occurring before and after surgery. 
• Infections: healthcare-associated infections have a worldwide rate of 0.14% (which rises by 0.06% yearly), leading to longer hospital stays, persistent disability, heightened antimicrobial resistance, extra financial strain on patients, families, and health systems, as well as preventable fatalities.
• Sepsis: sepsis is a critical condition that occurs when the body’s immune system reacts excessively to an infection. The body's response leads to harm to its own tissues and organs. Among all sepsis cases treated in hospitals, 23.6% were identified as healthcare-associated.
• Diagnosis errors: these happen in 5–20% of doctor–patient interactions (10,11). Based on physician evaluations, detrimental diagnostic mistakes were identified in at least 0.7% of adult hospital admissions. The majority of individuals will experience a diagnostic mistake at some point in their lives.
• Patient falls: patient falls are the most common adverse events  in hospitals. Their occurrence rate varies from 3 to 5 for every 1000 bed-days, with over one third of these incidents causing injury, leading to diminished clinical outcomes and heightened financial strain on systems.
• Pressure sores: pressure ulcers are damage to the skin or underlying tissue caused by prolonged pressure on certain areas of the body. If left untreated, they can lead to serious infections and even death.
• Risky blood transfusions: Unneeded transfusions and hazardous transfusion methods put patients at risk of severe adverse transfusion reactions and infections transmitted through transfusions.
• Wrong patient identification: Inaccurate patient identification can lead to numerous issues and significantly impact the delivery of healthcare. It can result in many consequences, like a surgery on the wrong site.
• Hazardous injection methods: WHO modelling estimated that, between 2000 and 2010, unsafe injections were associated with 1.67 million hepatitis B virus infections, between 157,592 and 315,120 hepatitis C virus infections, and between 16,939 and 33,877 HIV infections.

Addressing these risks is key to preventing patient harm. Raising awareness of these risks can also help prevent patient harm.

Approaches to Ensure Patient Safety

Most mistakes that lead to harm are not the result of the actions of one or a group of health and care workers, but rather of system or process failures.

Understanding the root causes of errors in healthcare necessitates moving away from the conventional blame approach to a more systems-oriented perspective. Errors are linked to inadequately designed system structures and processes, acknowledging the human aspect of all individuals working in healthcare settings under significant stress in complex and rapidly evolving circumstances.

This is accomplished without ignoring carelessness or misconduct from caregivers that results in inadequate care.  A secure health system is one that implements all required actions to prevent and minimize harm through structured activities, which include:

• Guaranteeing leadership commitment to safety and fostering a culture in which safety is emphasized.
• Ensuring a safe workplace as well as the safety of protocols and clinical methods.
• Developing the skills of healthcare personnel and enhancing collaboration and communication.
• Involving patients and families in the creation of policies, research initiatives, and collaborative decision-making.
• Creating frameworks for reporting patient safety incidents to facilitate learning and continuous improvement.

Investing in patient safety enhances health outcomes, lowers expenses associated with patient harm, boosts system efficiency, and aids in restoring community trust in healthcare systems.

If you wish to learn more about this, at IMANA we have many articles and videos explaining the importance of faith and medicine, such as the webinar by Dr. Natasha Piracha, which helps users understand the importance of palliative care and why patient safety matters for it.

Conclusion

Patient safety is a fundamental part of high-quality healthcare and requires continuous attention from health professionals, patients, families, organizations, and communities.

Preventable harm can occur at any stage of care, particularly for people living with chronic conditions who often interact with healthcare systems over long periods. Creating safer care therefore depends not only on individual responsibility but also on effective systems, clear communication, appropriate technology, strong teamwork, and meaningful patient involvement.

If you wish to learn more, our articles at IMANA provide the knowledge to identify risks, improve processes, support healthcare workers, and give patients a stronger voice in their care. Ultimately, patient safety is not a single action or policy. It is an ongoing commitment to making safe, respectful, and reliable care part of every healthcare experience and everyday life.