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2022 Patient Safety Awareness Week

During the 2022 Patient Safety Awareness Week, taking place March 13-19, The Joint Commission will focus on healthcare worker resilience – turning the lens to the caregivers at the very front lines.

The events of the past two years have brought sharp focus to the need to advance from the “Triple Aim” of healthcare (health, care, and cost) to the “Quadruple Aim,” which adds improving the “health and well-being of care providers.”

As we enter Patient Safety Awareness Week, we want to share some of the resources that provide succinct insights to some of the major challenges caregivers face, either personally or in the context of their daily work. To learn more, read our statement.

Here’s the agenda for the week:

 

COVID-19 exacted a toll on the healthcare workforce, and perhaps no members were more directly affected in the hospital setting than nurses and respiratory therapists. We need to build greater reliability in our healthcare settings and greater resilience among our colleagues.

More than five decades ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and the most inhuman.” Scholars have written that he said “inhuman” not “inhumane,” as this injustice was not just cruel, but beneath human dignity.

Personal safety is important in any role or job, but it is even more important in healthcare settings, because if healthcare staff do not feel safe, they cannot appropriately care for patients.

Out of every 100,000 pregnancies, nearly 18 women die each year in the U.S., and poor maternal and infant outcomes, including death, are far higher for people of color.

Too often, when we think of mental health, we only consider the patient. Caregivers are not immune to the stresses, physical exhaustion, and moral injury that have been amplified in the cruel wake of COVID-19. Without a mentally healthy workforce, we cannot have safe care.