SAO PAULO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Society of Anesthesiology of the State of São Paulo (SAESP) announced today that Joe Kiani, Founder of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation, will deliver the keynote address at the first annual São Paulo Foundation for Patient Safety Symposium (the Fundação para a Segurança do Paciente) to be held November 5 and 6th, 2015, at the Maksoud Plaza Hotel, in São Paulo, Brazil.
“We are taking a new and important step towards a society capable of debating in an open and productive fashion, issues relative to implementing a culture of safety in our hospitals,” said Dr. Enis Donizetti Silva, President of the Society of Anesthesiology of the State of São Paulo. “We are very impressed with what the Patient Safety Movement Foundation has been able to accomplish in a very short period of time. We need a commitment based approach and a system that promotes transparency and collaboration among all stakeholders. Our goal is to significantly reduce the number of tragedies experienced as a result of a medical error. There is a significant opportunity to help save thousands of lives in our first year alone.”
Preventable patient deaths and medical errors are on the rise in Brazil. The surgical mortality rate is 2.2% in the majority of hospitals. The morbidity rate is 36% to 48%. According to the World Health Organization, this percentage is higher than the 0.4% to 0.6% average in other parts of the world.
“We have the know-how and technologies needed to eliminate preventable hospital deaths but we need to let go of the fear of not achieving our goal of zero medical errors and take action,” said Joe Kiani, Founder of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation. “We are incredibly impressed by the passion and love that the organizers of SAESP have shown to improve safety for the patients in Brazil. One life lost is one too many. By moving past the fear of failure to action, even if not every tragedy is averted, thousands of lives will be saved.”
Brazil’s Foundation for Patient Safety was created by the Society of Anesthesiology of the State of São Paulo in 2014 at the 11th SP Congress on Anesthesiology (COPA) to better understand adverse events in healthcare and identify tested solutions to address them. The information discussed at the COPA meeting was also published in the book Patient Risk and Insecurity: Reflections for the Society to Advance in this Debate. The Foundation for Patient Safety is being created to act along with public and private health institutions. There will be an emphasis on collaboration and problem solving versus punishment. The SAESP has also developed the first patient safety application in Brazil for mobile phones so that clinicians can register adverse events in hospitals before, during and after surgery and stay anonymous.
About the Society of Anesthesiology of the State of São Paulo (SAESP):
Sociedade de Anestesiologia do Estado de São Paulo (SAESP) (Anesthesiology Society of the State of São Paulo) is a non-profit civil society that seeks to foster excellence in anesthesiology practice and patient safety, by means of education, research, professional development and enhanced work conditions, promoting participation and acknowledgement on the part of civil society.
