01 Sep Home Patient Safety Takes More Than the Right Device: Lessons from Értéksziget in Hungary
World Patient Safety Day is observed on September 17. In 2026, the World Health Organization is focusing on safe care for noncommunicable diseases. Under the theme “Safe care for every life,” the campaign draws attention to a basic reality of chronic care: patient safety cannot be reduced to a single appointment, treatment, or health care setting. The WHO notes that safety risks can arise across the entire continuum of care, from prevention and diagnosis to treatment, rehabilitation, long-term management, and self-care. Harm can also occur outside hospitals and clinics, including in homes and community settings. The safe use of medical devices is part of that broader patient-safety challenge. That raises a practical question that receives less attention than it should: what actually makes a medical aid safe to use at home?
For Értéksziget, a Budapest-based medical aids retailer and home-care knowledge provider in Hungary, years of working with patients and family caregivers suggest that the answer involves much more than selecting a high-quality product.
A Suitable Device Can Still Be the Wrong Choice
Medical-device safety is often considered in terms of the product itself. Does it work as intended? Is it suitable for its purpose? Can it be adjusted correctly? Those questions matter, but they do not tell the whole story once the device enters a person’s home. A walking aid may be technically sound but poorly suited to someone with limited grip strength, impaired balance, or reduced mobility. A bathing aid may work well in a spacious, accessible bathroom but be impractical in a small apartment where movement is restricted. The same principle applies to many products used for mobility, personal care, transfers, and everyday activities.
The approach used by Értéksziget therefore considers four closely connected elements: the user’s functional abilities, the device itself, the home environment, and the support and practical knowledge available to the user. These factors cannot be assessed entirely in isolation. A mismatch in any one of them can make an otherwise appropriate product difficult, ineffective, or unsafe to use.
“A device can be well made and technically appropriate and still be the wrong choice for a particular person. At home, the important questions are not only what the product can do, but who will use it, what that person can do independently, what the home is like, and what help is actually available.” — Zoltan Jozsef Szabo, co-founder of Értéksziget
In practical terms, this is a question of fit. The device must not only be appropriate in itself; it also has to fit the person and the circumstances in which it will actually be used.
Diagnosis Is Important, but It Does Not Tell the Whole Story
Choosing a medical aid can easily become diagnosis-driven: a person has a particular condition, so a particular category of product appears to be the obvious answer. Daily functioning is more individual than that. Two people with the same or similar diagnosis may differ considerably in balance, walking ability, upper-body strength, dexterity, vision, comprehension, endurance, or access to regular help from a family member. One person may be able to stand independently, while another needs assistance. One may have enough hand strength to operate a particular device safely, while another may not. One person may manage a multi-step product without difficulty; another may need a simpler solution or ongoing caregiver support.
For this reason, the Értéksziget approach treats diagnosis as one important piece of information rather than the final basis for device selection. The more useful question is often: What can this person actually do safely in the environment where daily life takes place? That principle also fits the WHO’s 2026 patient-safety message, which emphasizes that people living with chronic conditions should be active participants in their own care rather than passive recipients of services.
The Home Is Not a Controlled Clinical Environment
One of the defining features of home patient safety is that homes are rarely designed around health care equipment. Narrow doorways, thresholds, small bathrooms, rugs, furniture, and limited turning space can all influence whether a device can be used safely in practice. The same walker, bathing aid, or other assistive product may therefore work very differently in two different homes. Értéksziget’s experience suggests that the physical environment should be considered before a product is selected, rather than only after a problem becomes apparent during use.
There is another complication: the user’s condition may change. A device that provided appropriate support six months earlier may no longer be suitable if mobility, strength, cognition, balance, or the level of available help has changed. For people living with chronic conditions, the suitability of a device may therefore need to be reconsidered over time rather than treated as a one-time decision.
Knowing How to Use a Device Is Itself a Patient-Safety Issue
The WHO’s 2026 patient-safety recommendations encourage people living with chronic diseases and their caregivers to understand their conditions, participate in decisions, learn how to use medicines and medical devices correctly, recognize warning signs, and know when to seek help. In home medical-device use, those principles become very concrete. It is not enough to know what a product is designed to do. The user or caregiver may also need to understand how to adjust it, how to use it correctly, what its limitations are, what to watch for during use, and when a change in the person’s condition means that professional advice or a different solution may be needed. Information quality, therefore, is not simply an added convenience. It can be part of safe device use.
This is one reason Értéksziget has expanded beyond conventional medical-aid retailing and built a broader information and decision-support structure around its products.
There Is an Information Gap Between Professional Care and Daily Life
Értéksziget operates a medical aids store in Budapest and a nationwide online shop, but over time it has also developed its own knowledge and decision-support system. The Értéksziget Knowledge Centre brings together practical guides, instructions for use, professionally reviewed health content, and information organized around common home-care situations. The company has also developed decision-support services for people who first need help understanding what factors should guide a purchase rather than simply choosing between products.
An important part of this model is maintaining clear professional boundaries. Értéksziget does not diagnose medical conditions, prescribe treatment, or seek to replace physicians, physiotherapists, nurses, or other health professionals. Its role is different. Between a professional recommendation and the reality of daily life at home, there is often an information gap. Patients and caregivers may still need to understand which practical factors matter, how a device should be used, what its limits are, and when the situation requires professional medical input rather than product guidance. Értéksziget defines this area as an important part of its expertise. That role is also consistent with the broader patient-safety approach promoted by the WHO, which emphasizes health literacy, reliable information, patient participation, and safer self-care for people living with long-term conditions.
A Hungarian Example With Wider Regional Relevance
Értéksziget developed this approach in Budapest, Hungary. It would be inaccurate, however, to treat one Hungarian experience as a model for all of Central and Eastern Europe. Health care, rehabilitation, and social-care systems differ considerably across the region. The broader issue is more universal: much of life with a chronic condition takes place outside formal health care settings. Professional recommendations eventually have to be translated into daily routines at home. That is where devices are used, changes in condition are noticed, self-care is practiced, family members become involved, and decisions have to be made about when further professional help is needed.
The WHO’s 2026 campaign places similar emphasis on continuity, arguing that patient-safety risks need to be addressed throughout the care journey, including in homes and communities. Seen in that context, the Hungarian experience of Értéksziget offers a practical example of how access to medical aids can be connected with user education, individual circumstances, and structured decision support. The aim is not to create another level of medical care. It is to reduce the uncertainty left to patients and families once a device has to function in real life.
More Expensive or More Complex Is Not Always Safer
Another lesson from home use is that more features, greater technical sophistication, or a higher price do not automatically make a device more appropriate. A simpler product that a person can use confidently and independently may be safer than a technically advanced alternative that requires abilities or assistance that are not consistently available. For this reason, the Értéksziget approach does not begin by asking which product offers the greatest number of features. It begins with a different question: Which solution best matches the actual abilities and circumstances of the person who will use it?
“The best device is not necessarily the one that can do the most on paper. It is the one the person can use safely in the circumstances of everyday life.” — Zoltan Jozsef Szabo
Four Factors Have to Work Together
One of the central messages of World Patient Safety Day 2026 is that safe care for chronic conditions needs to follow people throughout their lives, not only during individual encounters with health professionals. For medical aids used at home, that principle has a very practical consequence. The right product matters, but it is only one part of the equation. Based on Értéksziget’s experience in Hungary, safe home use depends on how well four factors — the person, the device, the environment, and the available support — fit together. This approach does not replace clinical judgment. It addresses what happens next, when professional advice has to become workable in everyday life. That is where home patient safety becomes about much more than simply choosing the right device.
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For a broader overview of what the evidence shows about telemedicine and remote monitoring for chronic disease management at home, see this MedicalResearch.com interview on telemedicine support for chronic disease management and when it works best.
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Last Updated on September 1, 2026 by Marie Benz MD FAAD