EU health stakeholders at the Gastein Forum call for a strong political commitment for safer care to tackle HAIs and AMR
“The next challenge is to implement standardised electronic surveillance of AMR and HAIs in more than 8,000 European acute care hospitals, the ECDC is ready to help make this happen.”
Andrea Ammon, Director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)
On 2 October 2019, Health First Europe organised the “Data for safer care” workshop at the European Health Forum Gastein to explore the disruptive role of data in shaping effective patient safety strategies and develop effective healthcare-associated infections’ (HAIs) surveillance systems.
The moderator of the session Dr Josep Figueras, Director of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies , introduced the topic highlighting the potential of data-driven solutions for safer care and the EU’s role in sharing relevant data on patient safety as well as guiding member states to developing a common strategy to improve patient safety.
Data collection and surveillance strategies are needed to foster patient safety and tackle 8.8 million cases of HAIs in EU, along with the threat posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR). HAIs are a severe threat to patient safety and the most frequent adverse events during care delivery: a total of 228.000 acute care hospital patients and long-term facility residents acquire at least one HAI in any given day in the EU (1 in 15 patients and 1 in 26 residents). Comparable and aggregate data should be collected to guide efficient and transparent patient safety programmes, structures and policies. To facilitate mutual learning, common indicators need to be developed through cooperation between Member States and the European Commission, considering the work of relevant international organisations.
