Plain English Glossary, Patient for Patient Safety

_{Shared by SingHealth Patient Advocacy Network (SPAN), Singapore.
GKPS Reference: Plain English Glossary. Global Knowledge Sharing Platform for Patient Safety (GKPS). 2023. A003.}

SingHealth Patient Advocacy Network (SPAN) is a self-driven network of patients and caregivers that represents the collective voice of patients. As Patient Advocates, they are committed to making a positive impact on health care and work in close partnership with the health care team to provide important patient and family perspectives to enhance the patient experience and quality of care.

Established in March 2017, SPAN is strategically guided by the Patient and Caregiver Engagement Framework for the SingHealth cluster, and works in close partnership with SingHealth Group Office of Patient Experience, SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute for Patient Safety & Quality (IPSQ) and SingHealth Group Nursing. SPAN is a reflection of SingHealth’s commitment to designing a healthcare system that is truly for patients, by patients.

The Plain English Glossary aims to help health care professionals communicate effectively with patients and caregivers. It was seeded by an idea contributed by members of our Patient Support Groups based on their experience as users of health care. The glossary simplifies 150 commonly used medical terms and jargons into layman explanations, complemented with examples of how each term may be used in a sentence. Our objective is to encourage health care professionals to “speak the patient’s language”.

The Plain English Glossary is made possible by the efforts of patients, caregivers and the health care team, in particular, an editorial panel made up of nurses and allied health professionals, and facilitated by members of SPAN. The collaboration and partnership between health care providers and patients/ caregivers is testimony to the importance of working together.