Sunday, March 2, marks the beginning of Patient Safety Awareness Week for 2014. Sponsored by the National Patient Safety Foundation, the annual education and awareness campaign aims to involve health care organizations around the world to display the NPSF campaign logo and promotional materials and to raise awareness of patient safety issues.

The theme of this year’s week is “Navigate Your Health…Safely,” and focuses on reducing diagnostic errors. According to the foundation, diagnostic errors may account for 40,000 to 80,000 deaths per year in the United States alone.

For Patient Safety Awareness Week 2014, NPSF has teamed up with the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) to develop and disseminate educational materials for clinicians, health systems, and patients and consumers specifically related to better understanding and prevention of diagnostic errors. In addition, the two groups will present three free webinars on the topic in March.