Education, teaching & training in patient safety

Abstract

Patient Safety is not a side-effect of good patient care by skilled clinicians. Patient safety is a subject on its own, which was traditionally not taught to medical personnel. This must and will dramatically change in the future. The 2010 Helsinki Declaration for Patient Safety in Anaesthesiology states accordingly "Education has a key role to play in improving patient safety, and we fully support the development, dissemination and delivery of patient safety training". Patient safety training is a multidisciplinary topic and enterprise, which requires us to cooperate with safety experts from different fields (e.g. psychologists, educators, human factor experts). Anaesthesiology has been a model for the patient safety movement and its European organisations like ESA and EBA have pioneered the field up to now: Helsinki Patient Safety Declaration and the European Patient Safety Course are the newest establishments. But Anaesthesiology must continue in its efforts in order to stay at the top of the patient safety movement, as many other disciplines gain speed in this topic. We should strive to fulfill the Helsinki Declaration and move even beyond that. As the European Council states: "Education for patient-safety should be introduced at all levels within health-care systems"