Statement on World Patient Safety Day

The Joint Commission and Joint Commission International (JCI) proudly recognize World Patient Safety Day, an annual observance sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO), that aligns with our commitment to ensuring what matters most – that all people always experience the safest, highest quality, best value healthcare across all settings.

This year’s theme, improving diagnosis for patient safety, energizes us. Data show that 16% of preventable patient harm stems from delayed, wrong, or missed diagnoses – or the failure to communicate a diagnosis.

As patients, one of our most basic expectations is to receive a correct and timely diagnosis every time.

Many confounding factors contribute to these stark numbers, such as biases, staff shortages, and errors in judgement. Despite the complexity of modern healthcare, we have a duty to our patients to make the right diagnosis in time, every time. Now is the time to, “Get it right, make it safe!”

We see a significant opportunity to improve patient outcomes worldwide. To achieve this, we must work together – organizations, health professionals, patients and their advocates.

The Joint Commission and JCI unite with stakeholders to ensure that more than 23,000 healthcare organizations and programs across more than 70 countries provide their patients with the safest care. Through our HELP Agenda, we aim to address safety challenges faced by the healthcare organizations we serve, including diagnostic safety:

• Healthcare equity: We stand for healthcare equity. Patients with worse social determinants of health may have less access to healthcare systems that can provide them with the correct diagnosis. The Joint Commission's healthcare equity standards, introduced in the U.S. last year, challenge providers to address these disparities in care.
• Environmental sustainability: We urge healthcare organizations to pursue sustainability. According to the WHO, 3.6 billion people worldwide already live in areas highly susceptible to climate change. Healthcare organizations serving these areas must become resilient to these effects to continue caring for and diagnosing patients. In January 2024, The Joint Commission launched the Sustainable Healthcare Certification for healthcare organizations in the United States, and earlier this month, JCI and the Geneva Sustainability Centre (GSC) announced the JCI-GSC Healthcare Sustainability Certification to advance sustainable healthcare throughout the world. Both programs provide structure and validation to decarbonization and resiliency efforts.
• Learning: We want to ensure the responsible use of health data because we feel this accelerates the use of AI and algorithms to enhance safety and quality. To guide healthcare organizations in their use of patient data for AI, in 2021, the WHO published its first global report on AI in health and outlined six principles to guide its use – for diagnosis and beyond.
• Performance integration and improvement: We advocate for consistent measures and reduced complexity, so the emphasis is on better care, not competing measures. A healthcare organization’s performance against timely and accurate diagnosis measures can be monitored and improved.

We recently appointed Dr. Neelam Dhingra, MBBS, MD, as vice president and chief patient safety officer of JCI. She previously led the WHO’s programs on patient safety and blood safety for 25 years, and her team inaugurated World Patient Safety Day in 2019. As an expert in patient safety, she is forging new partnerships with ministries of heath and international healthcare organizations, advancing JCI’s mission to continuously improve best practices in patient safety and quality of care around the world.

In recognition of World Patient Safety Day, we have also introduced several new resources:

• A video introduction from Dr. Jonathan B. Perlin, MD, PhD, president and chief executive officer, The Joint Commission and JCI.
• A live panel discussion on Sept. 17 featuring global patient safety experts on improving patient safety and quality of care.
• Free guidance for organizations.

We are doing our part. You can, too. Follow The Joint Commission on LinkedIn and Facebook, and find JCI on LinkedIn, Facebook, and X. Join in on the conversation by using #WorldPatientSafetyDay and #diagnosticsafety.