財團法人醫院評鑑暨醫療品質策進會 Taiwan Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation

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Patient Safety

Updated by 2012.03.19

In recent years, the issue of "patient safety" has been under great concern in different countries all over the world. In Taiwan, a "Patient Safety Committee" was established by Department of Health in 2003. TJCHA has been devoted to helping the Patient Safety Committee to improve the healthcare quality.

Taiwan Patient-safety Reporting System (TPR)
The reporting and surveillance systems are regarded as an indispensable part to the patient safety frame work. The external reporting system is especially crucial to complement the internal reporting system, and it can also help healthcare staff to gain experiences in incidents that rarely happen. Furthermore, it helps trends analysis and allows healthcare organizations to share experiences and learn from each other, in order to manage a safe healthcare environment. Due to these benefits, a so-called "voluntary reporting system" is aggressively promoted in the USA, UK and Australia. In light of this promotional trend, TJCHA started in the end of 2003 to establish a nationwide reporting system, titled "Taiwan Patient-safety Reporting System" or "TPR." "TPR" also represents "Temperature, Pulse and Respiration" which serve as the most important signs of life. Therefore, we use "TPR" to indicate that this system is indispensable in the management of patient safety.
Patient safety promotion programs
TJCHA invited clinical experts of patient safety to formulate national patient safety goals, strategies, and principles. We also refer the annual goals and practices of The Joint Commission for the use and reference of the related medical affairs since 2004. The Annual Patient Safety Goals of year 2010-2011are:
1. Medication Safety 2. Infection control /Hand hygiene 3. Surgery safety 4. Falls prevention 5. Encourage reporting 6. Hand-over and transportation safety 7. Patient involvement 8. Tube Safety 9. Hospital fire prevention

Patient Safety Culture (PSC)
PSC can be considered as a proactive measurement for identifying quality improvement opportunities. The Taiwan Joint Commission has developed a Patient Safety Culture Survey System and completed a nationwide safety survey in Taiwan which shows disparities in perception of patient safety culture among units, ranks, hospitals of different characteristics, etc. It also indicated correlation between culture and certain patient safety indicators, such as patient falls.