Province Marks Patient Safety Week

Health-care professionals will encourage patients to become more involved in their care next week as part of Canadian Patient Safety Week, Oct. 8-13.

Thousands of health-care providers will wear Ask. Talk. Listen. buttons Tuesday, Oct. 9 to increase communication -- one way to lead to safer care.

"We know that our health-care professionals are among the best in North America and whether you're a patient, family member or a front-line health-care worker, you play a role in patient safety," said Health Minister Chris d'Entremont who will visit Colchester Regional Hospital to greet patients and staff Tuesday, Oct. 9.

"There is much greater awareness of miscommunication or risks during hospital stays and I think it's a positive thing that patients are increasingly becoming their own advocates."

Reducing your chances of adverse events or errors can be as simple as washing your hands while visiting or staying in a hospital.

Ensuring effective communication is also important. One way is to check that the care message has been understood is for health-care professionals to ask patients to repeat what they have been told.

Nova Scotia's district health authorities are planning events across the province next week to raise awareness. Patients in Halifax and the South Shore will receive safety tips when they are admitted. In Yarmouth, staff and patients will receive a medication brochure emphasizing the need for clear communication. Cape Breton emergency rooms are using SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation), a communications tool designed to ensure patient information is understood and communicated in a consistant manner.

"When patients are sick, distraught or anxious, their ability to hear and process information is often reduced," said Dr. Pat Croskerry, chair of the Nova Scotia Health Care Safety Advisory Committee. "This can be very important when they are being given information about their diagnosis or instructions about their treatment and medications.

"The theme of this year's campaign is to encourage and promote effective communication between patients and health-care workers and among the workers themselves."

Dr. Croskerry, a leading physician on the topic, will attend the Canadian Health-care Safety Symposium, a patient-safety conference. The conference, in Ottawa, Oct. 11-13, originated in Nova Scotia.

Tips on patient safety and provincial initiatives are available on the Department of Health website at www.gov.ns.ca/health

District Health Authorities are also doing events that the media may want to interview them about.

The contacts are:<br x='1'/>
Theresa Hawkesworth
South Shore Health
902-527-2266

Barbara Johnson
South West Health
902-749-0517

Jan MacKinnon
Annapolis Valley Health
902-538-3443

Krista Wood
Colchester East Hants Health Authority
902-893-5554 ext. 2409

Ann Keddy
Cumberland Health Authority
902-661-1090

Eileen MacIsaac
Pictou County Health Authority
902-752-7600 ext. 1124

Heather MacKay
Guysborough Antigonish Strait Health Authority
902-867-4262

Greg Boone
Cape Breton District Health Authority
902-567-7791

Peter Graham
Capital Health
902-473-7020

Allison MacDonald
IWK Health Centre
902-470-6764