Abstract
A survey in our hospital (252 beds) was conducted to investigate the difference of responses to an incidentreporting system by profession, i.e., doctors, nurses, pharmacists, radiographers, medical technologists, physical therapists, dental technicians, nutritionists, and office workers. 641 incidents were collected for 6 months and the majority of incidents were reported by nurses (55.7%). The number of incidents per staff in each profession was significantly high among pharmacists (10.4/person, p<0.05), while it was lowest among doctors (0.9/person).
Replies to our questionnaire revealed that 78.1% of all staff had the experience of reporting incidents. Doctors, nutritionists and office workers figured relatively low rate of reporting. The most common reasons for reporting was an attitude of self-reflection in nurses, radiographers, physical therapists and dental technicians belonging to the group of employees working face to face with patients. Doctors, nurses and medical technologists mainly reported incidents to simplify their complicated business. The most common factor hindering their report was being busy or uncertainty about whether to submit a case or not, and the latter was outstanding in nutritionists and office workers.
170 nursing staff were divided into 9 groups according to working area to analyze the questionnaire in detail. The number of incidents per staff in each area had significantly positive correlation with the rate of self-reflection and the rate of advice to report given by their colleagues (p<0.05). The degree of recognition of feedback information was positively correlated with the rate of recommendation to report made by their supervisor (p=0.07). An incident-reporting system is a method of knowledge management to externalize tacit knowledge and construct explicit knowledge. The result indicates that we need both a grass-roots movement and a strong leadership to develop this system.
