Wellness Blog

You and your family are always subject to and at risk of avoidable medical harm. We can all recall incidents where you, your loved one, a friend, or an acquaintance suffered harm during medical treatment. A lot of it could have been avoided. Our Patient Safety initiative is to help you with this. This is not promotional or commercial.

Why does harm happen at all?

Harm is happening all the time.

1. Due to wrong medicines that caused an allergic reaction, or not following the prescription? Maybe the patient did not provide all the symptoms and a full medical history, or was the harm because of delayed presentation and wrong diagnosis?
2. Over-medication led to complications when an old lady continued to take a weekly dose of deworming medicine for several years until she collapsed. The recommendation was three doses only for a week.
3. A young life was lost because of the late detection of cancer; the outcome may have been different if it had been diagnosed in time. 
4. Infections are frequent in hospitals post-surgery, during injections, transfusions, or dialysis. 25% of people suffer some complications post-surgical procedures.
5. 40% of older patients reported falls in hospitals or at home, creating severe complications. 

The list is unending and can happen at any stage of the patient’s journey.

Who is responsible for such avoidable harm?

It could be anyone from medical practitioners, hospitals, outpatient clinics, nurses, and home care, and very often it is due to a lack of awareness and engagement from us as patients and caregivers.

Can such harm be prevented? Who can help?

Doctors and hospitals are doing a great deal to reduce the probability of harm at all stages of the patient’s journey. Yet, 1 in 10 patients suffers harm during hospitalization, and 4 in 10 during outpatient treatment (WHO).

Half of this could have been avoided if we had engaged in our medical journey as alert and active partners, not just as recipients of care.

At Patients for Patient Safety Foundation, we strive to provide you with well-researched, reliable knowledge about medical issues that crop up along your health journey for protection, detection, or taking prompt action to reduce

Harm even if you face a dangerous medical situation.  

Our content is aggregated from reputed and trusted global sources, is screened by a panel of experts, is customized to the Indian context, and is presented in simple language with practical safety tips in text, digital, and visual formats in several Indian languages. 

We are a non-profit trust, sponsored by CAHO (Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organizations), and supported by over 400 hospitals.