Activities to promote patient safety reporting in community pharmacies: Focusing on reports by region in South Korea

Sukyeong Kim, Su-Jin Kim,Jiyun Yang, Eun Hye Lee, Na-Young Kim, Kihyun Sung, Mo-Se Lee

Regional Patient Safety Center, Korean Pharmaceutical Association, Seoul, Republic of Korea

 

INTRODUCTION

Medication safety is the most important issue in patient safety.  Community pharmacies have a role in monitoring and reporting problems¹⁾ and communication with patients and healthcare professionals is essential for this.  Patient safety incidents includeany accidents that have caused or are likely to cause any hazard providing any health and medical services to the patient.

 Most of medication safety activities were performed in hospital settings, but there can be many medication safety issues in small health institutions such as clinics and community pharmacies so it is important to activate community to make reports.

 In South Korea, since 2017, a national institution called the Korea Institute for Healthcare Accreditation has started receiving patient safety incident reports through the Korea Patient Safety Reporting & Learning System (KOPS).²⁾ For facilitate patient safety incident report from community pharmacies and to connect with KOPS, the Korean Pharmaceutical Association (KPA) has established a patient safety incident reporting system; KPA SafePharm.³⁾

 KPA has sixteen provincial branches nationwide and supports them so that patient safety incident reporting and incident prevention activities can be carried out across the country. This study analyzed the result of main activities to promote the reporting in community pharmacies.

 

AIM

The goals were to identify the reporting status of sixteen regions nationwide, and to promote reporting patient safety incidents in every region through more active and diverse encouragement and support. In addition, this study attempted to show the increase of patient safety incident reports and retrospectively review the activities as factors that contributed this increase.

METHODS

To show the trend of patient safety incident reports, KPA SafePharm data collected from 2020 to 2022 were analyzed. The number of reports and the number of participating pharmacies from each of the 16 branches were analyzed by year. As for the number of participating pharmacies, the number of pharmacies that reported multiple times during the same year was reflected as one.

To analyze the contributing factors of patient safety incident reporting, KPA’s activities were categorized; KPA’s infrastructure (center establishment, manpower), reporting system improvement, guidelines and booklets, education, and cooperation system with branches. New establishment & activities and increased performance were reviewed and analyzed.

RESULTS

[The data of reports from 16 Provincial Branches]

 In 2020, 2021 and 2022, 818, 1,260 and 4,836 patient safety accidents were reported from community pharmacies in 16 cities and provinces, respectively.  In particular, in the case of 2022, it increased by about 283.8% compared to the previous year.  In 2022, Seoul reported the most with 1,883 cases, followed by Daegu with 800 cases and Gwangju with 627 cases. In particular, reports were made in all regions because Gyeongbuk and Ulsan, which had no reports in 2021, reported 16 cases and 8 cases, respectively. And in most regions, the number of reported cases and the number of participating pharmacies increased sharply in 2022 compared to 2021. (Table 1., Fig.3., Table 2.)

[The activities promoted to report after 2021 and changes in centers and branches that have affected]

1) Designation as a regional patient safety center

Since 2021, KPA has been designated as a regional patient safety center by the Korea Institute for Healthcare Accreditation and has received national project fund for activities.

2) Increase in the number of working pharmacists

Since 2021, the number of working pharmacists in the center has increased from two to three.

3) Improvement of reporting system

In 2021, the reporting system was improved so that reporters could easily report by changing terms and items.

4) Publication of reporting guideline book & leaflet

In 2021, KPA published reporting guideline book, leaflet and distributed them to community pharmacies 2022.

5) Strengthening of education

In order to guide pharmacist members on how to report patient safety incidents in 2021 and 2022, local pharmacist associations were visited and training was conducted, and a web symposium was held through a YouTube channel.

6) Reinforcing cooperation with branches

• Additional meetings besides the regular branch cooperation meetings are held.
• Due to the establishment of the Seoul branch center and the establishment of its affiliated branch center in 2022, the report of that region was activated.

CONCLUSION

After 2021, the number of reported cases and participating pharmacies gradually increased, and in the case of 2022, in particular, the result of a sharp increase in reporting performance appeared, and reports were made from all branches nationwide. As an important factor, it was designated as a regional patient safety center by the Korea Institute for Healthcare Accreditation in 2021, so more systematic work was done, and the reporter's responsibility for reporting to a national institution had an impact on promoting reporting. In addition, it was possible to increase the number of working pharmacists as stable project costs were guaranteed. It seems that the number of users increased by improving the reporting system to make it easier to report and providing reporting guidelines nationwide. The fact that a branch center was established in Seoul, where there are many members, and activities to promote reporting within the branch itself were strengthened was also a big factor. Through this study, we expect the possibility of establishing a patient safety culture centered on local pharmacies by continuing activities using the nationwide cooperative system of the KPA.

REFERENCE

1)    Georgia, G.L., Kendall, K.H., Kate, R. H. The Role of Community Pharmacists in Patient Safety.  AHRQ PSNet Oct.24.2021 Available online: http://m.site.naver.com/1bKrp (accessed on 25 July 2023).

2)    KOPS Portal Site Open. Available online: https://www.kops.or.kr/micro2/index.html  (accessed on 30 July 2023).

3)    Kim, S.-J.; Kim, H.; Kim, N.Y.; Kim, Y.; Lee, J.-Y.; Lee, M. Community Pharmacy-based Patient Safety Activities: Focused on the Regional Patient Safety Center of the Korean Pharmaceutical Association. Yakhak Hoeji 2020, 64, 204–213.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Regional Patient Safety Center, Korean Pharmaceutical Association, Seoul, Republic of Korea

+82-2-582-7896  kpa-okdrug@safepharm.or.kr 

 194, hyoryeong-ro, Seocho-gu, Seoul 06708, Korea