Upside Down Hospital: Co-Producing Safety With Patients

Abstract

Safety in healthcare has not significantly improved in the last 20 years with an estimated 5 to 10% of patients admitted to hospital suffering from adverse events. Health care is a service that can encourage optimal health outcomes only through meaningful, collaborative partnerships between patients and clinicians. Co-production of health services can be used as a means to rethink how health care is delivered with patients as co-creators rather than passive recipients of health care assisting healthcare organisations towards safer and more responsive care. Technology can improve patients’ agency over their care when consumers are able to personalize their experience while using an organization’s service and in return undertake specific tasks needed by the organization. Patients can be the pivot point of safer hospital care, not only in the context of face-to-face encounters in which the benefits of working together are obvious, but also in designing systems that can improve patient care, increase satisfaction and enhance the value of care.