Ideas for joining our World Patient Safety Day campaign!
There are many ways to advocate for patient safety. We have put together some examples of activities to give you some inspiration. These activities range from raising awareness, creating opportunities for effectively engaging with key decision-makers in healthcare as well as the public. We call on everyone to join us in campaigning to ensure that patient safety remains a global helath priority.
Effort level: Easy
- Promote the campaign: Share WPSD key messages across social media channels using the hashtag #Patientsafety and #WorldPatientSafetyDay and tagging @IAPOvoice on Twitter and Iapo Patient Voice on Facebook.
- Add the WPSD banner to your organization’s website hyperlinking it to IAPO’s website.
- Contribute to IAPO’s monthly newsletters in August and September writing an article about your views on this year’s WPSD theme.
- Create a thematic issue for your organization’s newsletter focused on the World Patient Safety Day theme - Patient Safety: a global health priority.
- Share a short quote (60 words max.) on what WPSD and the theme means to you. This will be turned into a ‘quotagram’ and shared globally via social media, adding your voice to the campaign.
- Create an infographic with key facts about efforts towards patient safety.
Effort level: Let's go all out on this!
Acknowledge patient safety champions
- Organize awards ceremony with certificates or other tokens of appreciation and recognition for health workers who demonstrate a patient safety culture in their actions.
- Set up a “Wall of Fame” in healthcare facilities featuring patient safety champions.
Events
- At the national level, organize public events with active participation from patients, national health leaders and health sector partners. Invite the head of state, minister of health, prominent politicians, and celebrities to support World Patient Safety Day. Ask them to take a pledge to make healthcare safer. Announce focused schemes, programmes and policy initiatives on the day. Organize technical seminars and symposia on patient safety.
- At local level, organize patient safety events for especially vulnerable patient groups such as elderly patients. Invite and engage families and communities to partner in your event.
- Ask healthcare leaders in your organizations or communities to promote World Patient Safety Day on social media, websites, television and radio interviews and use the slogan “Speak up for Patient Safety!” in their speeches and interviews.
- At the healthcare facility level, organise an open day for the media and patients to see the steps you have taken to reduce the risk of making errors. Show them how you will keep patients safe.
- Plan your event in a public space to engage and encourage people to speak up for patient safety.
- Identify and contact influencers to speak up for patient safety and support World Patient Safety Day activities.
Social media
- Ask celebrities, influencers, health workers and leaders to take their photo with “Speak up for Patient Safety!” signs and post them on social media. You can use WHO’s social media messages and frames for this purpose.
- Identify and promote patient safety champions and get their consent to tell their stories on your social media channels.
Media
- Contact national and local media in advance of World Patient Safety Day to secure their interest and support; provide them with information and impactful testimonials. Use information from the WHO website to inform media about key messages and issues of patient safety.
- Produce television or radio spots promoting patient safety.
- Reach out to radio stations. WHO’s campaign essentials will feature radio messages that can be translated in local languages.
Art
- Encourage theatre groups to produce plays to raise awareness on patient safety.
- Approach artists to create artwork for patient safety for your healthcare facility.
- Produce and display World Patient Safety Day roll-up banners, posters and electronic visual displays.
- Produce and distribute World Patient Safety Day souvenirs such as T-shirts, mugs, caps, wrist bands, pins, book marks, notebooks, and car stickers.
Partnerships
- Build partnerships with patient associations; encourage them to share their stories of change and improvements and amplify these stories through your networks.
- Engage non-governmental organizations and local healthcare advocates and community leaders on the campaign