Patient Safety Week

Recently, I learned about a horrendous patient safety event from a PFAnetwork member who works in the trenches of local patient support and advocacy. The event was followed by silence from the hospital staff and medical team. No compassionate response, and no effort to acknowledge the unnecessary pain and suffering the patient experienced as a result. Like our PFAnetwork member, I was outraged and then deflated, that even with all of the efforts made by our PFAnetwork community, through all layers of the health system, something like this scenario can still play out. What are we to do? Where are our energy and efforts best spent? These are questions I believe we should be asking ourselves as individuals and collectively as a community. I often come back to the thought, "What would it look like if we weren't involved? What if we weren't sharing these stories to spread a sense of urgency?"

Patient Safety Week is coming up this month. I want to invite you into the battle to make care safer for everyone. We'll continue to work alongside our partners at the Cynosure HQIC, Comagine QIO, and others to drive quality improvement activities. This month I'd like to encourage all of us to learn something new about patient safety and spread our new knowledge in our local partnership efforts. There are powerful partners with us, such as the Sepsis Alliance and Patients for Patient Safety US that can help guide us.

I know it's hard to keep mustering the energy, but the PFAnetwork members know how to do the hard stuff. Let's keep sharing the stories to inspire change!

Libby Hoy
PFCCparters, Founder and CEO