Unsafe medication practices and medication errors have become a global concern and a leading cause for avoidable harm. A large number of preventable deaths and serious harm occurs globally due to medication errors. The global cost associated with medication errors is approximately 42 billion US dollars per annum. It is identified that, the patients in low-income countries experience twice as many disability adjusted life years lost due to medication errors than the patients in high-income countries.
Weak medication systems, human factors, lack of staff and poor environmental conditions such as inappropriate room temperature, poor lightning conditions in storage areas, are considered as the main causative factors for medication errors across the globe. Errors may occur during prescribing, transcribing, administration, and monitoring practices which may result in severe harm even death.
In this context, World Health Organization has identified “Medication Without Harm” as the third Global Patient Safety Challenge. The challenge aims to propose solutions for the global issues pertaining to the medication safety and urging the Member States, professional bodies and all relevant authorities to engage minimizing medication errors. This process intends to reduce severe medication related harm by 50% in the coming five years. The challenge was officially launched in 2017 at the Second Global Ministerial Patient Safety Summit held in Germany.
With the technical guidance of the WHO, the Directorate of Healthcare Quality and Safety, Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka, took the leadership in the development of a national action plan on medication safety with the aim of ensuring medication safety in the Sri Lanka healthcare system. This national action plan is a collective effort of all relevant stakeholders in the country. The plan was drafted based on studies and observations relevant to medication safety in Sri Lanka which makes it unique to the Sri Lankan setup. It covers the four strands: patients and the public, healthcare professionals, medicines and systems & practices of medication and three flagship areas i.e. polypharmacy, high-risk situations and transitions of care as identified by the Strategic Framework of the Global Patient Safety Challenge of the WHO. This plan was launched in 2021 at the World Patient Safety Day national event. WHO will continue to provide support in 2022 to work together with the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders to achieve the goal of the plan - reducing patient harm due to unsafe medication practices and medication errors. Related resources WHO Medication without harm initiative: https://www.who.int/initiatives/medication-without-harm Patient safety: https://www.who.int/health-topics/patient-safety#tab=tab_1 WHO Strategic Framework of the Global Patient Safety Challenge: https://cdn.who.int/media/images/default-source/ihs/patient-safety/strategic-framework-medication-without-hearm-tm.png?sfvrsn=f1f3db88_7
National Action Plan on Medication Safety for Sri Lanka: https://quality.health.gov.lk/images/2021/Medication_safety_book_13-09-2021_complete.pdf
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