On 28 May 2010 a conference
was held in Florence on “Together to improve the quality of care and
patient safety”. It brings together clinicians, health care
administrators, patients, representatives of patients organizations,
citizens committed to patient safety, the Assessore Regionale (Tuscany)
for Healthcare and two politicians from the Italian Parliament.
It was stated that patient safety is now the crucial issue for medicine, as also resulted from the Eurobarometer Survey.
It
was agreed that communication between patients and medical staff is
the base for common successful cooperation. Some patients said that to
improve the quality of health means to empower patients and families,
and some others suggested the importance to make public i.e. the number
of surgical interventions made in a hospital/ from a surgeon and how
many were successful. Patients also stressed the need of more time
during the medical visits, to have more opportunities to ask doctors
all the questions they think important, and mostly doctors to have time
to answer properly.
We were invited to Florence to tell more about
PFPS action. It was great to have a chance to speak up about us, about
what PFPS Champions are doing globally, about how PFPS has been
probably one of the most important and innovative initiative in
healthcare, for its potential to really make medicine safer and more
accountable through a true patients involvement and participation.
Speakers
invited to this meeting presented what is now done in patient safety in
Italy – there were some thoughts from Gian Franco Gensini, dean of the
University of Medicine of Florence, prof. Berni from Regional Federation
of the Surgeon Medical Association. Riccardo Tartaglia, Director of the
Centre for CRM Tuscany Region presented statistic data about Europe
according patient safety. A survey carried out on behalf of European
Commission shows that more than ¾ of Europeans consider medical errors
an important issue, but only ¼ have come across them personally. Among
the most distrust as far as hospitals and doctors go are the polish.
78
% of the surveyed in Eurobarometer Survey stated that medical errors
were an important problem, but only 23% admitted that they had
experienced a medical error personally or in their family and less than
half (40 %) were afraid that they would be faced with such a problem.
The majority of Europeans (69%) trust doctors. However, almost half
consider it probable that a serious medical error can be committed at
hospital.
Eurobarometer Survey indicates a wide gap in perceiving the
problem of medical errors by citizens of particular member countries.
The Austrian, Finnish, Swedish, Danish and Estonian fear medical errors
the least. On the other hand, the surveyed from Italy, Poland, Latvia,
Lithuania and Cyprus stated that medical errors were an important
problem in their country. The survey indicates that inhabitants of these
countries are more often afraid of medical errors and have less trust
in doctors not committing such a mistake.
Among the surveyed Poles
91 % were convinced that medical errors were a serious problem in their
country nowadays. Nevertheless, only 28 % had come across it personally
or among their family members. However, only one in the three (34 %)
trusts that a doctor will not commit an error and half are afraid that
they will fall victim to an error while in hospital.
All
authorities agree that communication between patients and medical staff
is the base for common successful cooperation. To improve the quality of
health it is also needed a better education and awareness for patients
and families. Some patients who were there and also patients
representatives suggested that if somebody in hospital should decide for
operation he or she should know more about the doctor – for example how
many operation has this doctor done, how many were successful how many
not. It was stressed that patients have not small time to speak with the
doctor about treatment, about results , taking medicine etc. There were
also doctor in this room, so they replied yes we want to share our
knowledge as much as possible with patients but we have so many people
to treat, sometimes half hour for neurology patient is not enough.
All
the time discussion between all parties was hot, some politicians from
Parliamentary Commission and from Senate invited to present their point
of view tried to convince that the main subject is that patients are
not courage to ask medical staff – to wash hands for example.
I and
Silvana Simi – we were invited to Florence to tell more about PFPS
WHO initiatives according to patient safety. It was good to have a
chance to speak more about us, what are doing patients champions in the
World, how we communicate, how we have done network to fulfill our
tasks. After lunch break during round table participants decided about
five national objectives to improve quality of care and patient safety.
Jolanta Bilinska and Silvana Simi
