Scientific Programme
Programme-at-a-Glance
Pre- and Post-Congress Workshops
 
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Having a congress like this allows us to meet with different professions and interact around common topics and interests.
It was very helpful for me to understand the challenges faced by my colleagues from other professions and disciplines. This gives us an opportunity to take a step back from clinical practice
and to interact, to be updated,
to reconnect and network.
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~ Prof Julian Thumboo
Director, SingHealth Health Services Research Centre
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Programme >
Patient Safety Symposium
Patient Safety and the Three Pillars of Academic Medicine
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Track type: Symposium |
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Duration: 90 minutes |
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Location: Academia, Auditorium |
Involvement in a Medical Error: What Should It Mean To You?
 Speaker: Ms Pang Nguk Lan
Patient safety incorporates all
the elements that can contribute to an adverse event during the provision of
healthcare. Many of these activities can be subjected to error which can result
in patient harm. Although there is a tendency for healthcare team members to
define the error as a breach of standards by an individual, more often the
break in the safety and quality in clinical practice is caused by a combination
of personal, contextual and task-dependent factors. To improve safe care
delivery, practices need to engage in quality improvement activities through
the development and implementation of strategies that reduce the possibility of
events that result in patient harm.
Clinical governance and leadership
are at the heart of reform in the areas of quality and safety. Quality
improvement requires a collaborative effort of all levels of staff, and they
need to feel empowered to contribute to good care by raising safety concerns
and be supported to ensure risk and harm are eliminated. Fostering a culture of
safety and quality, and partnership in healthcare settings is critical to
safety and quality movement. Essentially, there is also a need to provide
safety knowledge and skills across practice activities to create safeguards for
patients.
Topic 2:
Patient Safety Initiatives: Well-analysed Recommendations or Knee-jerk Reactions?
Speaker: Assoc Prof Sophia Ang
Research into the area of patient safety is fairly new and can be very difficult: It is challenging to find research subjects to do a project to proof that parachutes improves survival. Many factors confound patient safety projects in real life. When harm occurs there is a great deal of emotion attached and a level of urgency to take action based on even one catastrophic event. Yet if immediate action is taken before baseline measures can be made then improvements cannot be measured accurately.
In other words there is often a conflict between urgency to close a loop and enough evidence before taking action. Furthermore cost savings are also very difficult to define in patient safety hence there is a reluctance to put in resources if cost savings cannot be clearly defined or are small in amount.
Usually, patient safety depends on a
multi-prong approach rather than a single intervention that also compounds the
issue of proving an intervention is useful. Hence, patient safety research
that is bedside-back-to-bench and then bench-back-to-bedside has been
interesting -- most applicable to clinicians, but also difficult.
In this
presentation, there will be sharing on research into: early escalation,
medication safety, critical laboratory results communication, culture of
safety, handover of care and other areas.
Topic 3: “You’ve Got to Start Them Young”: Starting Patient Safety Education Early in Medical Schools
Speaker: Assoc Prof Ong Biauw Chi Patient safety is a relatively new topic for medical schools and for postgraduate professionals as well. This topic is not only important but covers a very side area and boundaries. It is a non-examinable subject and thus requires innovative and engaging methods in its sharing. The importance of patient safety cannot be debated. However, the imparting of knowledge in this area has to cover the intent, the professional pride and ownership of the issues as well as, the techniques and tools in analysing issues and implementing improvement. This session will look at the various techniques used in promoting education in patient safety and the various curriculum suggested by WHO and other organisations. *Information is correct at time of update
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