지역약국 기반 환자안전활동

Community Pharmacy-based Patient Safety Activities: Focused on the Regional Patient Safety Center of the Korean Pharmaceutical Association

To support the implementation of a patient safety system in community pharmacies, the Korean Pharmaceutical Association (KPA) had established the regional patient safety center (RPSC) in 2018. Since 2019, the KPA’s RPSC has participated in a preliminary project in the Korea Institute for Healthcare Accreditation (KOIHA) and has made an effort to activate voluntary incident reporting for patient safety in community pharmacies through ‘KPA SafePharm System’ modification and development of a reporting manual for pharmacists. In addition, the KPA’s RPSC conducted campaigns to improve patient safety culture, and built a cooperative system. As a result of these activities, voluntary incident reporting for patient safety from community pharmacies reached to a total of 3,598 reports during 2018-2019. The KPA’s RPSC had published ‘The Guideline of Safe Management of High-Alert Medications in Community Pharmacy Practice’ published in 2020 as a quality improvement activity. The KPA’s RPSC will work together with internal and external cooperative organizations and local branches to establish a patient safety system for community pharmacies. Finally, it would be expected to prevent patient safety incidents and their recurrence, and to provide better quality services in community pharmacies.