Patient Safety and Quality Committee - World Patients Alliance

The World Patient Alliance established the Patient Safety and Quality Committee to focus on promoting better quality and safer practices in health care around the globe. The members of the committee, below, were selected for their experience and commitment to this goal.  Please feel free to contact any of them with questions, suggestions, or issues you would like to see addressed.

 

Hussain Jafri

Hussain Jafri is the founding Director and Executive Director of World Patients Alliance. He is also the Secretary General of Alzheimer’s Pakistan, the national association of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias that Hussain founded in 1999 as a result of his experiences as a care giver for his grandfather with Alzheimer’s Disease. He has been very active in the field of patient safety and is the past Vice Chair and current member of the Advisory Group of Patients for Patients Safety Program (PFPS). Hussain has also founded Pakistan Patient Safety Initiative and has been working on several patient safety initiatives. The Government of the Punjab has also nominated him the Provincial Focal Person on Patients Safety & Quality and given the responsibility of developing patient’s safety and quality services in the health sector of the Punjab province.

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Jolanta Bilinska

Jolanta Bilinska is the founding Director and Treasurer of World Patients Alliance. She is also the President to Polish Patients Safety Foundation that aims to promote safety measures in health service as well as to involve patients in the process of treatment. The foundation cooperates with the Ministry of Health, the WHO, and another non-governmental organizations on patients safety matters. Jolanta is also the Advisory Group member of Advisory Group of WHO’s Patients for Patients Safety Program (PFPS).

Jolanta is also the  Director of Development and Social Communication at City Medical Centre, Doctor K. Jonscher in Lodz, a lecturer at the High School for Nurses in Kalisz, and former Head of the Department of International Cooperation at the National Health Fund, Lodz. Jolanta has an M.A. degree in Clinical Psychology, with experience diagnosing personality disorders in hospitalized children and teenagers. In the early 90s she worked for the regional newspaper Dziennik Łódzki, publishing nearly 2,000 articles on medical issues and politics, particularly relating to patients’ rights and how they are observed in health care system. She also raised patients’ awareness of the health care system

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Helen Haskell, MA

Helen Haskell is president of Mothers Against Medical Error and Consumers Advancing Patient Safety, and past co-chair of the WHO Patients for Patient Safety Advisory Group. Since the medical error death of her young son Lewis in 2000, Helen has devoted herself to enhancing the patient contribution to safety and quality in healthcare, in areas ranging from diagnostic accuracy to response to patient harm. She is a former chair of the SIDM Patient Engagement Committee and has served on numerous boards and committees including the boards of directors of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the ACGME, and the International Society for Rapid Response Systems. She has written journal articles, book chapters, and patient educational materials on patient safety, including a co-edited textbook of case studies from the patient perspective. Her son Lewis’s story has been featured in educational programs and videos including Transparent Health’s full-length Lewis Blackman Story.

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Regina Mariam. N. Kamoga MA

Regina is the Executive Director of the Community Health and Information Network (CHAIN) in Uganda. She is a board member of the World Patient Alliance and the Ugandan Academy of Health Innovation and Impact. She also is a founder member and chairperson of the Uganda Alliance of Patients Organizations.

One of her key roles is as a WHO Patient Safety champion and she is a member of the WHO’s Patients for Patient Safety advisory group. In this capacity she has co-convened patient safety meetings with the Ministry of Health, WHO, National Drug Authority, AFROSAFE, and IDI and set up links between the MoH, CHAIN, Nottingham Trent University and Makerere law school, and co-authored the patient safety chapter in the WHO-TDR report on Implementation Research for the control of diseases of poverty.

Other roles include member of the Ugandan ministry of Health’s Technical Working Group on Standards, Compliance, Accreditation & Patient Protection (SCAPP), MoH Uganda, membership in the BMJ International Patient Panel and input into the work conducted by the Council for International Organizations for Medicines Sciences into drug development and safe use of medicines. She is also an honorary member of International Rotary Fellowship of Healthcare Professionals.

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