How big is the patient safety problem?

Patient safety is a leading global public health problem. WHO estimates that in high-income countries, 1 in 10 patients suffers preventable harm during hospital care. In LMICs, the burden is proportionally far greater — approximately 2.6 million people die from unsafe care annually in LMICs alone. Globally, unsafe healthcare costs an estimated $42 billion per year in medication errors alone. More than 50% of all patient harm is considered preventable.

What are the most common types of patient harm?

The most frequent types of preventable patient harm are: medication errors (responsible for approximately 1 in 9 hospital admissions in developed countries); healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) — affecting 7-10% of hospitalised patients; surgical complications — wrong-site surgery, retained instruments, anaesthetic errors; diagnostic errors — missed, wrong or delayed diagnoses; pressure injuries from immobility; and patient falls. The WHO Global Patient Safety Report 2021 provides the most comprehensive global burden estimates.

What is WHO's Surgical Safety Checklist?

The WHO Surgical Safety Checklist — introduced in 2008 under the Safe Surgery Saves Lives initiative — is a 19-item tool used at three critical moments in surgery: before anaesthesia induction; before skin incision; and before the patient leaves the operating room. A landmark study in 8 diverse hospitals showed a 47% reduction in in-hospital mortality and 36% reduction in major complications after checklist implementation. It is now standard of care globally. Critically, the benefit depends on genuine checklist use — not mechanical box-ticking.

What is healthcare accreditation and what does it achieve?

Healthcare accreditation is an independent external review of a healthcare organisation's structures, processes and outcomes against established standards of care. It provides systematic quality assurance, drives continuous improvement, enhances accountability and builds public trust. Accreditation has been shown to reduce adverse events, improve clinical processes and reduce HAI rates. In Georgia, PHIG acts as Accreditation Canada's representative, implementing AC's internationally validated standards — 9 hospitals and 5 dental clinics are now accredited.

What is the WHO Medication Without Harm challenge?

WHO's third Global Patient Safety Challenge — Medication Without Harm (2017) — aims to reduce severe, avoidable medication-related harm by 50% globally within 5 years. Medication errors affect 1 in 10 patients, costing at least $42 billion per year. Key priority areas are: high-risk medications (anticoagulants, opioids, insulin, chemotherapy); polypharmacy in complex patients; and care transitions where medication errors are most likely.

What is the World Patient Safety Day?

World Patient Safety Day (17 September) was established by WHO following WHA72.6 (2019) — the first WHO resolution specifically on patient safety. It coordinates global action through annual campaigns. Recent themes have focused on: health worker safety as a patient safety issue (2020); maternity and newborn care safety (2021); medication safety (2022); and engaging patients for patient safety (2023). PHIG and GMJ mark World Patient Safety Day with educational and awareness activities.

How do healthcare-associated infections relate to AMR?

HAIs and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are deeply intertwined. HAIs often require antibiotic treatment, and inappropriate use in healthcare settings drives AMR. Drug-resistant organisms — MRSA, carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella, C. difficile — are predominantly spread within healthcare facilities. Preventing HAIs through hand hygiene, contact precautions and environmental cleaning directly reduces both the burden of infection and the selective pressure driving AMR. Infection prevention and control (IPC) is a pillar of both patient safety and AMR strategy.

What is diagnostic error and how common is it?

A diagnostic error is defined as a missed, wrong or delayed diagnosis — failure to establish an accurate and timely explanation for a patient's health problem. It is the most common, most costly and most dangerous category of medical error in ambulatory care. A landmark study estimated that approximately 1 in 14 primary care patients experiences a diagnostic error. Causes include cognitive biases, inadequate history-taking, failure to follow up and system failures. Diagnostic error is a growing focus of patient safety research and WHO action.

How does patient safety relate to accreditation in Georgia?

PHIG, as Accreditation Canada's representative in Georgia, implements AC's internationally validated standards across Georgian hospitals. By 2025, 9 hospitals and 5 dental clinics have been accredited through this programme. AC standards cover patient safety comprehensively — clinical governance, medication safety, surgical safety, infection prevention, patient rights, fall prevention and emergency preparedness. Dr Pkhakadze's work through PHIG and ASF brings world-class patient safety standards to Georgia and the South Caucasus.

What is the ISQua and how does it relate to accreditation?

The International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua) is the global network for healthcare quality and safety improvement, with the International Accreditation Programme (IAP) that accredits accreditation bodies themselves — setting global standards for accreditation programmes. Accreditation Canada is ISQua-accredited, providing PHIG's Georgia programme with internationally recognised validation. ISQua also promotes quality improvement through research, education and global partnerships.

What is zero harm in healthcare?

Zero harm is the aspirational goal of many patient safety programmes — designing health systems so that preventable harm never occurs. While complete elimination of all harm may be impossible, the zero-harm framing drives cultural change by rejecting the assumption that "some harm is inevitable." High-reliability organisations (HROs) — aviation, nuclear power — have achieved near-zero rates of catastrophic failure through system design, culture change and reporting transparency. These principles are increasingly applied in healthcare.

What is the WHO Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021-2030?

Endorsed by the World Health Assembly in 2021, the WHO Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021-2030 provides the framework for 10 years of coordinated global action. It is built around seven strategic objectives: making zero avoidable harm a state of mind; building high-reliability health systems; strengthening safety reporting and learning systems; ensuring safety of clinical processes; patient and family engagement; healthcare worker safety; and adequate investment. It calls for national patient safety plans, mandatory incident reporting and specific safety targets.

How does GMJ News cover patient safety?

GMJ News tracks WHO patient safety initiatives, accreditation developments, HAI surveillance data and the growing patient safety research literature. The GMJ has a particular focus on patient safety in the South Caucasus context — directly relevant to PHIG's accreditation work, the ASF programme in Georgia, and the partnership with Accreditation Canada. Patient safety and healthcare quality are editorial priorities of the Georgian Medical Journal.

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Patient Safety & Healthcare Accreditation

GMJ News knowledge hub · last reviewed September 2026 · Georgian Medical Journal

Summary Statistics Glossary GMJ news FAQ Documents Organizations Research

Unsafe care is a leading cause of avoidable harm worldwide: the WHO estimates that roughly 1 in 10 patients is harmed in health care, and more than half of that harm is preventable. The WHO Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030 calls for eliminating avoidable harm as a core aim of health systems, while external evaluation frameworks — JCI's International Patient Safety Goals (IPSG), Accreditation Canada's Qmentum program, and ISQua-endorsed national schemes — translate safety science into hospital practice. GMJ News tracks this field closely; in Georgia, the Public Health Institute of Georgia serves as Accreditation Canada's partner, and professionals can study the discipline in depth in the GMJ Academy accreditation and patient-safety courses.

Key messages

Scale of harm

Unsafe care kills an estimated 2.6 million people per year in low- and middle-income countries alone. WHO estimates that 1 in every 10 patients is harmed in hospital in high-income countries — making unsafe healthcare one of the ten leading causes of death and disability worldwide.

Preventable

At least 50% of patient harm in healthcare is preventable. The most common types — medication errors, healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), unsafe surgical procedures and diagnostic errors — are largely avoidable with evidence-based safety systems.

World Patient Safety Day

The WHO World Patient Safety Day (17 September) — established by the World Health Assembly (WHA72.6, 2019) — coordinates global action on patient safety. Each year focuses on a different theme; 2023 focused on engaging patients in their own safety.

Accreditation as quality engine

Healthcare accreditation — systematic external assessment against rigorous standards — is the most validated mechanism for driving sustained quality improvement. Accreditation Canada is the leading international accreditation body, now operating in Georgia through PHIG and Accreditation Sans Frontières (ASF).

Seven global challenges

WHO's Global Patient Safety Challenges address the highest-burden safety failures: medication safety, surgical safety (Safe Surgery Saves Lives), healthcare-associated infections (Clean Care is Safer Care), injection safety, radiation safety, sepsis management and diagnostic errors.

Data gap

Patient safety is chronically under-measured: in most countries, incident reporting systems are incomplete, adverse event surveillance is weak and error rates are underestimated. Building safety data systems is a prerequisite for improvement.

Key statistics

2.6M

deaths/year from unsafe care (LMICs)

WHO

1 in 10

patients harmed in hospital

WHO

50%+

of patient harm preventable

WHO

$42B

cost of medication errors/year (WHO)

WHO

17 Sep

World Patient Safety Day (annual)

WHA72.6 2019

hospitals accredited in Georgia (PHIG/AC)

PHIG/ASF

Global burden of patient harm (% of DALYs) by type — WHO Global Patient Safety Report 2021

Source: WHO. Global Patient Safety Report 2021. Medication harm, HAIs, surgical harm, diagnostic errors, falls.

Glossary of key terms

Patient safety
WHOThe absence of preventable harm to a patient during the process of health care. The reduction of risk of unnecessary harm associated with healthcare to an acceptable minimum.

Healthcare-associated infection (HAI)
WHO/CDCAn infection acquired during the process of receiving health care that was not present or incubating at the time of admission. HAIs are the most common adverse event in healthcare, affecting hundreds of millions of patients worldwide. Largely preventable through hand hygiene, sterilisation and barrier precautions.

Never event
NPSA/CMSA serious, largely preventable patient safety incident that should never occur in a healthcare organisation — such as wrong-site surgery, foreign object retained after procedure, wrong-patient blood transfusion or patient falls from an unprotected height. Their occurrence signals significant system failure.

Healthcare accreditation
ISQua/ACA rigorous external evaluation of a healthcare organisation against established standards by an independent body. Accreditation Canada (AC) is the leading international accreditation body. In Georgia, PHIG and ASF implement the AC framework in 9 accredited hospitals and 5 dental clinics.

FMEA
WHO/JCAHOFailure Mode and Effects Analysis — a proactive risk assessment methodology used to identify potential failure modes in healthcare processes before errors occur. A standard tool in patient safety quality improvement programmes.

Surgical Safety Checklist
WHOA 19-item checklist introduced by WHO in 2008 as the Safe Surgery Saves Lives initiative, verified to reduce surgical mortality by 47% and major complications by 36% in low- and high-resource settings alike. Now standard of care in operating theatres globally.