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The European Board of Anaesthesiology wishes to give its wholehearted support to the WHO World Patient Safety Day on 17th September 2024.
"Get it right, make it safe!"
World Patient Safety Day is an opportunity to raise public awareness and foster collaboration between patients, health workers, policymakers and health care leaders to improve patient safety.
This year the theme is “Improving diagnosis for patient safety” with the slogan “Get it right, make it safe!”, highlighting the critical importance of correct and timely diagnosis in ensuring patient safety and improving health outcomes.
Anaesthesiology is acknowledged to have made significant improvements in Patient Safety particularly through the implementation of clinical monitoring which can help the early diagnosis of potentially harmful conditions in the perioperative period and “make it safe”. However there is still progress to be made “getting it right.” For example when using Capnography human factors can still delay the identification of inadvertent oesophageal intubation resulting in death or major morbidity for patients. Globally in low- and middle-income (LMIC) countries where this established technology still not widely available many patients and their families are still be harmed by unrecognised oesophageal intubation. We fully support and encourage all possible efforts to “Get it right, make it safe!”, by implementing Capnography Globally [2}.
The 2010 Helsinki Declaration on Patient Safety in Anaesthesiology [1] stated that: -
Patients have a right to expect to be safe and protected from harm during their medical care and anaesthesiology has a key role to play improving patient safety perioperatively. To this end we fully endorse the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists International Standards for a Safe Practice of Anaesthesia.
There are also opportunities for “Improving diagnosis for patient safety” when caring for patients in Intensive Care and Pain Medicine.
Improving Patient Safety through better diagnosis and other means remains a key issue for the users and funders of healthcare systems. The OECD estimate 15% of Health Budgets are spent on managing Adverse Events and so apart from protecting countless patients’ lives and health, billions of euros could be saved each year as well.
Dr David Whitaker
Chair of the EBA Patient Safety Committee
Prof Olegs Sabelnikovs
President EBA
Reference
- Helsinki Declaration on Patient Safety in Anaesthesiology. European Board of Anaesthesiology 2010 https://journals.lww.com/ejanaesthesiology/fulltext/2010/07000/the_helsinki_declaration_on_patient_safety_in.3.aspx
- Global Capnography to Improve Safety for All Patients: Time for Urgent Action O’Sullivan, Ellen P. MBBCh, FRCA, FCAI; Nabukenya, Mary T. MB; Newton, Mark MD Anesthesia & Analgesia 137(5):p 917-920, November 2023. | DOI: 10.1213/ANE.0000000000006735
World Anaesthesia Day 2023!
Dear Esteemed Colleagues,
On this World Anesthesia Day, we wish to extend our heartfelt congratulations to each of you. As we commemorate this day, let us take a moment to reflect on the importance of our work and the impact it has on the lives of those we serve. Together, we exemplify the highest standards of professionalism and care!
Warm regards and best wishes for World Anesthesia Day.
The EBA Executive team
16th October 2023
07/02/2023
EBA Statement on Earthquake in Turkey and Syria
23/12/2022
Dear colleagues, dear friends,
a heartfelt thank you for your hard work and another year of fruitful collaboration.
The passing year saw the return of the irreplaceable congeniality of direct meetings and we hope to uphold it in the year to come.
Wishing you and your dear ones a Merry Christmas and a joyful Holiday season!
Yours,
The EBA Executive team
03/12/2022
EBA Autumn meeting
2-3 December, 2022
(Zagreb, Croatia)
23/10/2022
Dear colleagues,
It is with deep sadness that we share with you the notice that Prof. Dr. Götz Geldner has died on Sunday October 23rd at the age of 57. Professor Geldner was a cherished colleague as well as an active participant in the work of our Board. In 2016 he was elected vice president of the European Board of Anaesthesiology and also served as interim president from March till May 2021. Throughout his work in the EBA he was not only a good friend but a true and devout advocate for the specialty.
Professor Geldner was Head of the Department of Anaesthesiology, Intensive, Emergency and Pain Medicine of the Klinikum Ludwigsburg since 2005. He also served as president of the Berufsverbandes Deutscher Anästhesisten (BDA) since 2011.
Along with his notable scientific acomplishments, it will be his commitment to helping others, colleagues and patients alike that will be remembered.
Our thoughts go out to his family and coworkers.
The Executive of the EBA
16/10/2022
Dear colleagues, October 16th is World Anaesthesia Day
The focus this year is on Medication Safety. Being leaders in perioperative patient safety we anaesthesiologists have an obligation to serve as role models and share that knowledge and expertise with our colleagues and coworkers.
To facilitate the implementation of a culture of medication safety the EBA published Recommendations for Safe Medication Practice:
The EBA also fully supports the WFSA campaign to emphasize the importance of Medication Safety and increase the visibility of the role anaesthesiologists play in providing a safe environment for patients
Happy WAD 2022!
17/09/2022
The European Board of Anaesthesiology (EBA) fully supports the WHO World Patient Safety Day 17th September 2022.
Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are a leading cause of avoidable harm in health care across the world and ‘Medication Safety’ has been selected as the theme for World Patient Safety Day 2022, reaffirming the objectives of the WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge: ‘Medication Without Harm’ launched in 2017. https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-patient-safety-day/2022
This focuses on the priority areas of medication safety: high-risk situations, transitions of care, polypharmacy (concurrent use of multiple medications) and look-alike, sound-alike medications, all particularly applicable to Anaesthesiology. The European Board of Anaesthesiology responded to this by publishing Recommendations for Safe for Safe Medication Practice.
The EBA wishes to promote these recommendations to help reduce high burden of medication-related harm due to medication errors and unsafe practices. Additionally they include a 13-point checklist all hospitals can use to monitor the implementation of these simple and achievable measures. Prof Oleg Sabelnikovs, EBA President said “According to WHO, medication harm accounts for 50% of the overall preventable harm in medical care and we advocate urgent action through adopting the EBA guidelines to improve medication safety.”Dr David Whitaker, Chair of the EBA Patient Safety Committee, commenting on the WHO initiative, said: “Great opportunities exist to reduce and remove human factor errors in medication safety through better pharmacy procurement of safer, end-user friendly medicine preparations, avoiding preparations that look and sound alike which can easily be confused with others, using ready-to-administer prefilled syringes and standardisation of work surfaces and medication processes.”
Any enquires about this Press Release please contact EBA Secretariat email: secretary@eba-uems.eu
30.04.2022.
ETR update 2022 from task-force of EPD has just been approved by UEMS Council.
Congratulations!!!
2021