By Dr Steph Jones
Happy World Patient Safety Day! To celebrate this annual event Pharmora scientists and medics have been reflecting on how we have contributed to patient safety over the years. Highlights of our contributions include:
- Risk management plans;
- Additional risk minimisation measures (such as developing pharmacy dispensing protocols and educational materials);
- Routine safety surveillance activities;
- Signal evaluations;
- PBRERs and DSURs;
- Reviewing submission documentation for accuracy of safety messaging.
To raise awareness, the WHO have made the 17th of September “World Patient Safety Day” annually. The most recent iteration focused on improving diagnosis for patient safety with the slogan “Get it right, make it safe!” (WHO, 2024). Also, the Uppsala Monitoring Centre organises a “Med Safety Week” in November (this year is from 4th November – 10th November), where they team up with regulators across the globe to encourage side effect reporting (WHO, 2024).
Visit the official website to learn more about the day: World Patient Safety Day, 17 September 2024: “Improving diagnosis for patient safety” (who.int)
This year’s theme from WHO is “Improving diagnosis for patient safety”. With this in mind Pharmora reflected on the following ways we have supported our clients:
- Adjudicating adverse events against recognised diagnostic criteria;
- Supporting clinical trials of anti-cancer treatments with companion diagnostics;
- Reviewing pathology data to determine disease stage accurately (e.g. at baseline or post-surgery) during oncology clinical trials;
- Developing toxicity management guidelines that provide guidance to help identify and manage specific events.
We celebrated World Patient Safety Day with our own “Pharmora Patient Safety Week” with our scientists taking part in a variety of medical reporting workshops and fun crosswords!