Making major investments in patient safety
The Swedish Board of Health and Welfare estimate that around 100,000 patients suffer from iatrogenic harm and approximately 3,000 people die every year due to incorrect treatment or through lack of care. To rectify this problem, KTH and Karolinska Institutet are investing in a national centre for patient safety at KTH Flemingsberg.
“Health care from a technical point of view is 30 years behind the times when you compare to how industry or aviation has developed,” says Lars-Åke Brodin, professor in medical technology at the School of Technology and Health at KTH.
Together with Li Felländer-Tsai, professor of orthopaedics at Karolinska Institutet, he will be further developing the successful cooperation in research and education concerning patient safety and will be able to benefit from the unique test environment that Karolinska Universitetssjukhuset provides.
”To train and perform complicated procedures and operations before conducting surgery on people ought to be a requirement,” says Lars-Åke Brodin.
The initiative builds on the excellent research environments in Flemingsberg and is being presented under the management of the county governor Per Unckel at the conference Forum Flemingsberg on 6 May.
Li Felländer-Tsai adds that Flemingsberg has the prerequisites and the expertise required for a national centre on patient safety.
“We have been pioneers within the area for quite some time,” says Li Felländer-Tsai.
She is also the superintendent of CAMST, Centrum för avancerad medicinsk simulering och träning (The Centre for Advanced Medical Simulation and Training). CAMST is a key component in the initiative being made at Flemingsberg as a national centre for patient safety. The simulators which CAMST has provide the possibility to train individual ability and teamwork and can be moved for example to emergency and intensive care departments in order to achieve as authentic circumstances as possible.
For more information, contact Lars-Åke Brodin at 08 - 790 48 69 / lars-ake.brodin@sth.kth.se or Li Felländer-Tsai at 08-585 871 91 / li.tsai@ki.se.