The Ministry of Health and Welfare will expand the number of medical institutions subject to deploying dedicated staff for patient safety staff from 25 percent to 40 percent by 2027.
On Thursday, the ministry held the 14th National Patient Safety Committee and approved the 2nd Patient Safety Comprehensive Plan (2023~2027).
Through its first comprehensive plan (2018~2022), the ministry attained some results by building the infrastructure for patient safety at the national level. However, there were limitations to effective support for activating the participation of patients and guardians in patient safety activities and preventing frequent patient safety accidents.
The Second Comprehensive Plan builds on the basic infrastructure established in the first package, focusing on spreading a culture of patient safety among the public, upgrading and strengthening the existing infrastructure, and emphasizing intergovernmental cooperation to prevent patient safety accidents in organic connection with other healthcare policies and systems, ministry officials said.
First, it will strengthen the capacity of healthcare organizations to reduce patient safety incidents at medical sites.
The second plan will also aim to improve patient safety leadership in healthcare organizations by institutionalizing patient safety management training programs and developing guidelines for high-frequency errors.
Besides, the government plans to enhance public confidence in healthcare services by strengthening the capacity of patient safety activities, including expanding the quantity and quality of regional patient safety centers and incentives for small and medium-sized healthcare institutions.
In particular, the ministry will establish a committee to expand patient safety infrastructure in small and medium-sized healthcare organizations and gradually expand the number of institutions to be staffed with dedicated personnel.
The ministry plans to increase the rate of dedicated patient safety staff in medical institutions to 40 percent by 2027, up from only 25 percent in 2022.
It will also expand the national support system for improving patient safety issues. To this end, the ministry plans to strengthen the capacity of the National Patient Safety Control Tower by, for instance, expanding the role of the Central Patient Safety Center and securing essential personnel to build a national medical safety net.
Specifically, it will estimate the socio-economic costs of patient safety incidents to provide a basis for revitalizing investment in patient safety, develop and improve patient safety indicators in medical quality assessment, and revise certification standards to strengthen patient safety.
It will also promote the linkage of information systems of related organizations to integrate patient safety-related data and the advancement of the patient safety reporting and learning system for integrated data analysis.
For this purpose, it will conduct a phased patient safety survey to calculate the social and economic costs of patient safety accidents and establish an “integrated management system for patient safety R&D” to oversee the safety of medical technologies developed through medical-related R&D.
"The Second Patient Safety Plan is all about the public's continued interest and participation in patient safety," said the Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare, Park Min-soo. "We will faithfully implement key tasks for accident prevention, such as activating the participation of Korean citizens in patient safety activities, strengthening the capacity of healthcare organizations to reduce patient safety accidents in the field, and expanding the support system at the national level."
The government will enhance the implementation and effectiveness of the comprehensive plan by establishing annual implementation plans and checking implementation results in consideration of changes in the healthcare environment and public demand, he added.