WISH announces first speaker in Safer Care Accelerator series

Margaret Murphy of the WHO's Patients for Patient Safety Program

Margaret Murphy of the World Health Organization to highlight importance of engaging patients to achieve safer care.

The World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), a global initiative of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), in partnership with Imperial’s Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI), has announced its first event in the Leading Health Systems Network’s (LHSN) Safer Care Webinar Series: Involving the Patient in Safer Care.

Taking place on 15^th April, the webinar will discuss how placing patients at the centre of care and engaging them as full partners is essential for any patient safety effort.  

The featured speaker is Margaret Murphy, External Lead Advisor for the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Patients for Patient Safety Program, a network of 300 patient safety champions from 52 countries with 19 collaborating organisations.

Following the death of her son in 1999 as a result of medical error, Margaret Murphy has been actively involved as a patient safety advocate. She is also a Member of the Steering Committee of the Patients for Patient Safety strand of the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety; a Member of the inaugural steering committee of the World Alliance for Patient Safety Collaborative Centre for Patient Safety Solutions; and a Council Member of the Irish Society for Quality and Safety in Healthcare.

Though clinicians typically take the lead with regards to patient safety, it is imperative for patients and their families to remain involved and vigilant.  As stated by Margaret Murphy, “You ignore at your peril the concerns of a mother.”

WISH is spearheaded by Qatar Foundation to inspire and diffuse healthcare innovation and best practice. It remains closely aligned to the vision and mission of QF to unlock human potential and reinforces Qatar’s pioneering role as an emerging centre for healthcare innovation.

WISH launched the LHSN Safer Care Accelerator Programme last month to share best practice and inspire health systems worldwide to provide safer care for patients. The year-long programme will bring together a global network of healthcare organisations to exchange insights, experiences, and data on the topic of patient safety, culminating in the publication of a global report.  So far, 16 organisations spanning six continents have joined the effort. 

Professor The Lord Darzi of Denham, Executive Chair of WISH and Director of IGHI, said: “Healthcare systems globally have increasingly recognised the importance of improving patient safety[1], however, despite a century of evolving practice, technology, and trillions of dollars in investment, the storyline is the same: heartbreaking stories caused by preventable harm[2]. Through the Safer Care Accelerator, we hope to provide learnings, insights and recommendations to enable healthcare leaders and policymakers to better prioritise initiatives that will improve safety, experience and outcomes for patients, crucially saving lives and reducing the burden on healthcare budgets.”

The Safer Care Accelerator Programme is part of WISH and Imperial College London’s LHSN initiative. Established in 2009, LHSN has worked with 21 health systems in 11 countries helping them to overcome the challenges they face in providing high value care to the populations they serve. Members of LHSN compare performance relative to their peers, learn from experts and frontline implementers during webinars, and are active members in a community committed to care improvement and innovation.

To download the WISH report on Patient Safety and learn more about WISH, please visit: www.wish.org.qa.

Get involved

If you wish to join the webinar, please email lhsn@imperial.ac.uk with your request