March 2nd - 8th is Patient Safety Awareness Week and the theme , Navigate Your Health…Safely, urges health care providers to help patients and consumers become more engaged in the health care process, whether visiting the doctor for a routine exam or entering the hospital for surgery.
Navigate Your Health...Safely...Starting with Diagnostic Errors: The campaign will also focus on the issue of diagnostic errors, an area that has not been widely studied in the medical literature. Diagnostic errors can be defined as a wrong, delayed, or missed diagnosis, and while not all result in patient harm, some studies have estimated that they occur in 10 to 20 percent of cases.
Plan to get involved in activities and learn how you can help consumers and patients become more engaged in their care. A few resources include:
- Visit www.npsf.org/psaw to learn about a series of webcasts that will focus the topic of diagnostic error.
- Watch and share the Ask Me 3 video with your staff and patients.
- Help spread the word! See the prepared social media posts and use the event hashtag #PSAW2014 to share what you learn during the week.
- Learn more about diagnostic errors—register for the NPSF online educational module,Reducing Diagnostic Error, a self-paced learning program offering continuing education and continuing medical education credit.
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