Abstract

PURPOSE
The objective of this study was to examine patient safety culture (PSC) and patient safety initiatives (PSI) according to IT-based medication errors prevention system which is constructed in this study, and to identify the relationships among system construction, perception to the usage, PSC and PSI.
METHODS
The subjects were 180 nurses who work at 12 different hospitals with over 300 beds. The questionnaire included the characteristics of participants, a system construction status, the perception to the usage using electric pharmacopoeia (EP), a drug dose calculation system (DDCS), a patient safety reporting system (PSRS) and a bar-code system (BS). The data were collected from July 2011 to August 2011. Descriptive statistics, ANOVA, Pearson correlation and MANOVA were used for data analysis.
RESULTS
Systems were constructed in participating hospitals; For EP and PSRS, 83.9%, DDCS, 50%, and BS, 18.3%. The perceptions on the usage of the system were marked highest in BS as 4.54 followed by EP as 3.85. There were significant positive correlations between PSI and EP construction (r=.17, p=.028); PSRS (r=.17, p=.028) and DDCS (r=.23, p=.002).
CONCLUSION
The developed system for improving the user experiences and reducing medication errors was found out well accepted. It is hoped that the system is helpful for PSC and PSI improvement in clinical settings.