[Strategic measures for patient safety in the National Health System: on-line training resources and access to...

Patient safety (PS) is a priority strategy included in the Quality Plan for the Spanish National Health System and its first objective is to promote PS culture among professionals and patients. The Internet is playing a key role in the access to clinical evidence and in the training of health professionals.

A multidisciplinary working group was created, who defined the criteria to help improve clinical practice in the field of patient safety, by making available and using web-based patient safety training resources and information.

Taking advantage of the possibilities offered by the Internet in terms of training, two online self-training tutorials were developed on risk management, patient safety and adverse event prevention. A Newsletter was also launched, together with two specific patient safety Supplements. Moreover, to extend the reach of the PS Strategy, a patient safety web page and weblog were created, in addition to a collaborative (internal) working group tool. Excelenciaclinica.net was also developed; a meta-search engine specialized in evidence-based information for health professionals, to make it easier to access reliable and valuable information. Health professionals were also allowed to consult, free of charge, reliable health information resources, such as the GuiaSalud platform, the Cochrane Library Plus and the resources of the Joanna Briggs Institute.

The involvement of health professionals in these measures and the role that these measures may be expected to play in the development of a premium-quality health service.