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UPMC for World Patient Safety Day 2022

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3 October 2022

Sharing, empowering, and engaging are the three main components of the initiatives and projects implemented in the Italian centers of the group affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh.

UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) has started multiple initiatives in all its centers and hospitals in Italy to ensure the safety of patients and staff and help spread a culture of safety in health care. Activities and projects that meet UPMC's mission to provide an accountable and patient-centered care model based on medical-scientific, technological, and organizational innovation. Staff are actively involved through initiatives that recognize, empower, and share virtuous behaviors.

World Patient Safety Day 2022: UPMC in Italy initiatives

The Patient Safety Star Award introduced during the World Patient Safety Day on September 17, will be based on games. Health care professionals take part in a real quiz on drug safety. Drug safety is the theme of this year's WHO campaign. The quiz is developed by a team of experts in safe drug management.

The Good Catch Program rewards health care professionals for reporting risk factors caused by potential gaps in the organization, thereby helping to prevent critical situations. The Best Hand Hygiene Performer rewarding staff performing hand hygiene with greater attention and frequency, are two long-lasting programs.

Giving patients an active and informed role in their medical care is a priority for UPMC. The Speak Up campaign, sponsored by WHO, encourages patients to:

  • ask questions if they have concerns or fears.
  • monitor the progress of procedures.
  • know the disease for which they are being treated.

This year, the WHO campaign 5 Moments of Medication Safety will also be widely promoted across all UPMC Centers. The goal is to explain what taking a medication means, for how long, and also when and why to stop taking it.

“LEArNing from your falls" is a project implemented at IRCCS ISMETT in Palermo and a finalist of this year's Lean Healthcare Awards. Based on the Lean methodology, this project enabled to develop mechanisms to prevent and mitigate the risk of hospital falls, one of the most reported in-hospital accidents, as shown by numerous studies. IRCCS ISMETT had already been awarded in 2020 for its Hand Hygiene project for prevention of health care-associated infections.