Providing Safe Care is Everyone’s Responsibility

Medical profession is getting a lot of press lately due to the exposure of patients to medical errors. It is quite alarming and also eroding the trust on the doctors and nurses. Pakistan Society of emergency medicine feels that in order to provide the needed care safely everyone has to play their role to benefit each one of us.

We need to create a safety culture in all our hospitals and clinics. The most important aspect of providing safe care is the competent doctors and nurses and then adequate resources. Training doctors and nurses to deal with emergencies through certification and/or degree courses is a must. Then providing them adequate resources is equally important.

Pakistan Society of Emergency Medicine feels that a change in mindset is important to achieve safety. The government has to ensure training opportunities as well as career pathway to attract doctors to serve in this important area of care. Equally important is to regulate the hospitals and its management to create safety for all their patients as the role of individual hospitals is extremely important to deliver safe care. It could be, by hiring the right resources, implementing triage and doing prioritization, implementing safe medication delivery and providing proper education, regarding the disease, to the patients.

We also feel that media has a very important positive role. They provide the platform to educate the patients, disseminate information, highlight the issues and ultimately provide that input to all stakeholders regarding solutions to improve the health care delivery and make it safe for the patients.

Being at the forefront of emergency care delivery and also on the front of education and training, we feel that it is a collective responsibility and we also should do our part in improving the situation. Pakistan Society of emergency medicine has been involved on different levels to impart education, improve our services and develop strategies to treat our patient the best way and with better resources. Following few steps can provide ways of improving the system and make it safe for the patients.

  1. Define minimum standards to deliver the emergency care across Pakistan.
  2. Strengthen the emergency medical training and education.
  3. Train the emergency nursing staff.
  4. Create guidelines and pathways that ensure safety and quality across Pakistan.
  5. Government level body to oversee the creation, implementation and ensuring compliance of guidelines of emergency care.

We at Pakistan Society of Emergency Medicine (PSEM) are very keen and enthusiastic to be part of the improvement process and happy to provide help at all levels as it will ultimately benefit our patients.

Released on: Thursday, May 09, 2019