Taiwan Patient Safety Culture Club joins PSMF

The Patient Safety Movement Foundation (PSMF) and the TaiwanPatient Safety Culture Club (TPSCC) announced that four hospitals and onehealthcare organization made a public commitment to helping eliminatepreventable patient harm and death in hospitals by implementing the PSMF’sActionable Patient Safety Solutions (APSS). The commitments were made at the3rd Annual Patient Safety Rally hosted by TPSCC in Taichung, Taiwan on April27, 2019. Over 130 clinicians, hospital administrators and patient advocateswere in attendance. Founded in 2012 by Dr. Chan Liao, TPSCC is the onlynot-for-profit patient safety advocacy group in Taiwan.

Dr. David Mayer, Chief Executive Officer of the PatientSafety Movement Foundation said, “In just two years, these dedicated cliniciansand administrators from 38 organizations have implemented solutions that havesaved 1,631 lives. We look forward to working closely with their team and hopethat every hospital in Taiwan (implements) every APSS by 2020.”

“We are working to unify the healthcare ecosystem in Taiwanand are committed to helping our hospitals eliminate preventable patient deathsby implementing the evidence-based APSS,” said Dr. Chan Liao, founder & presidentof the Taiwan Patient Safety Culture Club. “I attended the World PatientSafety, Science and Technology Summit in 2017 and was so inspired that I wantedto mirror their efforts in Taiwan. I became the Regional Chair for Taiwan andam so proud of the organizations that have joined us with a public commitment.We just announced the PatientAider app has been launched in TraditionalChinese. I believe this will help empower patients in Taiwan to take a moreactive role in their healthcare.”

TPSCC also revealed that the Patient Safety Movement’s PatientAider mobile app is now available in Traditional Chinese for both iPhone and Android users. This was done in collaboration with a solution called Contentful. The app is designed to cut through confusing medical jargon to provide an easy to understand explanation of medical terms, protocols and risks that hospital patients may encounter. It will be a valuable source of medical information that is designed to help patients and their loved ones navigate their hospital care.

Dr. Steven Barker, a member of the Board of Directors forPSMF, introduced the Patient Safety Movement’s mission, goals and strategies toattendees. He also provided a detailed presentation on the APSS called Hand-OffCommunications. According to Joint Commission, ineffective patient carehandoffs between providers or teams have been the largest single contributor topreventable patient deaths.  The PSMFdeveloped a new approach to patient handoffs, using a specific, detailedchecklist for each of the 18 types of handoffs identified.