Patient Safety Awareness Week runs March 14–20, 2027. It puts a spotlight on mistakes that can happen in hospitals and clinics, and on how to prevent them.
Mid-March, Each Year
Every year in March, Sunday through Saturday. The 2025 week began on March 9, the second Sunday of the month, and the timing has held since.
Founded in 2002 under the National Patient Safety Foundation, it changed hands later. Since NPSF merged with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in 2017, IHI has led it.
Timing has moved. Early on, the week ran during the first week of March.
Born From a Family’s Loss
Its first organizers were a small group, IHI recounts. Among them was a patient and family advocate whose child had died from a preventable medical error.
NPSF ran it in its first years as National Patient Safety Awareness Week. It aimed the message at patients and their families, not only clinicians.
One theme stuck early. “Patient Safety: A Road Taken Together” became permanent after it resonated with people.
Hospitals got toolkits. NPSF’s “Stand Up for Patient Safety” program sent member hospitals posters, banners and buttons.
Diane Pinakiewicz, then NPSF’s president, called the week “a time to reconfirm a commitment to this work.”
IHI opened the 23rd edition, in 2025, with its annual Patient Safety Congress in San Diego.
That year’s message tied into national tools. One was Safer Together, a national action plan. Another was a federal patient safety measure for hospitals.
Why Safety Needs Attention
Unsafe care is common worldwide. About 1 in every 10 patients is harmed in health care, the World Health Organization estimates.
Deaths run into the millions. Unsafe care causes more than 3 million deaths each year, WHO says.
Most of that harm can be prevented. More than half of it, or 1 in 20 patients, is avoidable.
Outpatient care is a big opportunity. Up to 80% of harm in primary and ambulatory settings can be avoided, WHO says.
Medicines are a big factor. Half of preventable harm is linked to medications, and medication harm affects 1 in 30 patients.
Such harm is often serious. WHO counts more than a quarter of it as severe or life-threatening.
IHI’s 2025 message boiled the response down to three A’s: awareness, assessment and action. Its advisor Patricia McGaffigan called it “the power of ‘A.'”
WHO adds a global date in the fall. WHO marks World Patient Safety Day every September 17, a day the World Health Assembly endorsed in 2019.
How to Speak Up
Safety is a team effort, and patients are part of the team. IHI urges hospitals to include patient and family members when they review their safety plans.
- Bring an up-to-date list of every medicine you take to each appointment.
- Ask what a new medicine is for, how to take it and what side effects to watch for.
- Bring a family member or friend to important visits to help listen, ask questions and take notes.
- Speak up if something seems wrong, such as a missed hand wash or a wrong name.
- If you work in health care, try IHI’s Safer Together self-assessment with your team, including patient representatives.
- Read the discharge instructions before you leave the hospital, and ask about anything that seems unclear or missing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Patient Safety Awareness Week an official observance?
No. A nonprofit leads it, though hospitals across the country take part.
What is Safer Together?
IHI’s recommended road map for health systems trying to cut preventable harm.
Can harm cost economies?
WHO says so. It may cut global economic growth by 0.7% a year.