Patient story

Patient safety is a critical global public health issue, fundamental to strengthening health systems, and is at the heart of universal health coverage (UHC). All WHO Member States and partners are striving to progress towards UHC and achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Patients, their families, and caregivers play a critical role in advancing safer care by shifting the paradigm of patient-centredness from care designed “for patients” to care designed “with patients”. Evidence shows significant gains in trust towards health systems, better patient satisfaction, improved safety and, reduction of harm in health care provision, and improved health outcomes when patients are treated as partners in their care. Thus, the engagement and empowerment of patients and their families is of utmost importance for any health system to make sustainable progress towards UHC.

In order to create a mechanism to reflect patient voices for improving patient safety, the WHO calls for patient stories. The stories we call for include those about avoidable harms, near misses, or best practices in the delivery of safe health care.