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Te Pū rauemi KOWHEORI-19 COVID-19 resource hub

Support for people working in health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Find information about how you can support yourselves and others, including consumers, teams and colleagues which complements and aligns with Ministry of Health resources.

Kia āta kōwhiri Choosing Wisely

The Choosing Wisely campaign seeks to reduce harm from unnecessary and low-value tests and treatment.

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Thanks for another great Patient Safety Week!

Aotearoa Patient Safety Day
28 November 2018

A huge thank you to everyone who supported Patient Safety Week 2018. The week, which focused on infection prevention and control, and in particular good hand hygiene, ran from 4 to 10 November.

Nearly 200 providers ordered resources for Patient Safety Week, including every district health board. 

In partnership with ACC and the Ministry of Health, and with support from Choosing Wisely, a suite of illustrated germs were developed which featured on posters, stickers, screen savers and a colouring competition.

The posters were translated into a variety of languages and encouraged good hand hygiene from both consumers and health professionals, to prevent the spread of germs which can cause illness and infections in hospital and in the community.

There was significant interest in our illustrated germ characters, which were featured across social media, and we also promoted messages through radio advertising and posts by social media influencers. 

The suite of germs were turned into animations for social media and used across Facebook and Twitter. By the end of the week our posts had over 50,000 impressions (likes, comments, shares and views).

The winner of our colouring competition, which received over 100 entries, was 10-year-old Jocelyn Chow who won a $100 Prezzy® card for her efforts. 

An evaluation of Patient Safety Week is underway and will be published on the Commission’s website in December. To inform the evaluation, a survey about Patient Safety Week is open for responses until Friday 7 December 2018 – view the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PSW-2018.