Status and Problems of Adverse Event Reporting Systems in Korean Hospitals

Abstract

Objectives: This study identifies the current status and problems of adverse event reporting system in Korean hospitals. Thedata obtained from this study will be used to raise international awareness and enable collaborative researches on patientsafety. Methods: We distributed the questionnaire developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ),USA to the 265 risk managers of hospitals by e-mail. Seventy-two percent of the risk managers responded to the inquiry.Results: Eighty-five percent of the hospitals responded that they collect information regarding the event where harm hasoccurred or might have occurred to a patient. Seventy-five percent of the hospitals did not allow individuals to report occurrenceswithout identifying themselves. Only 54% of the hospitals had an organized patient safety program that manages orcoordinates all of the hospitals patient safety activities. The most frequent reason why errors were not reported was the fearof individuals being involved in the investigation and potential disadvantage resulting from it. Eighty-five percent of the hospitalsproduced reports of their adverse event data, but 68% of the hospitals did not distribute occurrence reports within thehospital. Conclusions: Lack of standardized reporting system, available information, procedures for protecting the reportingindividuals, and mindlessness/indifference of the hospital employees are identified as the major problems. Therefore, it iscrucial to address these problems to develop appropriate solutions, enable proactive involvement from the healthcare community,and change the overall patient safety culture, specifically protecting privacy, to increase the quality of service in thehealthcare industry.