Medical Safety Inspections at Hospitals in Tokyo

September 28, 2005
Bureau of Social Welfare and Public Health

- Results of Onsite Inspections into Medical Safety Measures -

From May 2003 to September 2004, onsite safety inspections were conducted at all 670 hospitals within the Tokyo metropolitan area. This was the first exercise aimed at clarifying the performance of medical safety systems followed by hospitals

Onsite inspections were conducted and guidance given using the "medical safety management system", a self-managed checklist for hospitals that summarizes into key points the specific systems and measures required to be followed by hospitals. The results have been summarized into the following report.

Main findings

Medical safety management systems
Medical safety management systems are generally well coordinated, but some operational improvements are desired:

• Guidelines for medical safety management have been formulated: 86.7%
• A Medical Safety Management Committee has been established: 98.4%
• Incident reports and other in-hospital reporting systems exist: 94.6%

Specific measures for safety management
Further efforts at the medical and healthcare worksites are desired:

• Standardization of in-hospital services is being promoted: 69.0%
• Measures to prevent falls and tumbles have been properly addressed: 62.8%
• Measures to prevent misadministration of drugs have been properly addressed: 62.4%

Measures for prevention of in-hospital infection
This second onsite inspection showed significant improvement over the previous inspection conducted in FY 2002.

• Education and training is being provided for personnel: 84.8% (FY2002: 45.0%)
• Measures for in-hospital reporting, etc. have been thoroughly implemented: 93.7% (FY2002: 65.9%)
• Opened or prepared liquid medicine is being properly managed: 76.9% (FY2002: 49.2%)

Future policies

Onsite inspections using the self-managed checklist for hospitals will be continued in FY 2005 to provide necessary assistance and guidance to hospitals for greater self-management capabilities and improved medical safety.