Selecting QA Items & Guidelines for Hospital Safety Management

Abstract

Background : The goal of this study was to establish the QA items and guidelines for

preventing and improving of safety management. Therefore we investigated the nurses' recognition and knowledge of the safety and risk procedures and policies, and the agreement between the nurses beliefs on the degree of importance of those procedures

and policies, with actual implementation in hospitals.

Method : The subjects of this study were 201 nurses who participated in a program

called continuing education for nurses, which held in December,1993.

Result : The results of this study were as follows:

1. Among 18 types of hospital risks, the items that scored highest or the need of closer attention in safety management was the needle stick, medication errors, falling, and bed sores.

2. In most questions of the 18 incidences, the nurses showed that the estimated result

would have positive signs except for hospital infections, burns, and bed sores.

3. Even though the survey shows that incidences and types of occurences varies

according to the person's age and the time of incident, they mostly occur between

midnight to 6AM. Falls and bad sores can be seen more in the elderly. Medication

errors, hospital infections and urns are frequently found between the ages of one

through twenty.

4. There was a higher mean score for recognizing the importance of those items than the importance of implementing them.

Conclusion : In summary, nurses did perceive the need of safety management but the

hospital policy for proper safety management was not established. So we recommended

that the hospital administration would undertake an early detection and proper

management system for hospital precautions, based on QA items & guidelines presented

in this study.