Opinions of Hospital Staffs on the Korean Hospital Standardization Program and Its Criteria for Quality Activities

Kim, Chang-Yup; Lee, Sang-Il; Lee, Kun-Sei; Shin, Young-Soo

Journal of Korean Society Quality Assurance Health Care 1995;2(1): 126.
Published online May 30, 1995.

병원표준화심사의 질 향상 관련 항목에 대한 평가와 개선방안

김창엽¹, 이상일², 이건세¹, 신영수¹

¹서울대학교 의과대학 의료관리학교실
²울산대학교 의과대학 예방의학교실

Opinions of Hospital Staffs on the Korean Hospital Standardization Program and Its Criteria for Quality Activities

Chang-Yup Kim¹, Sang-Il Lee², Kun-Sei Lee¹, Young-Soo Shin¹

¹Department of Health Policy an Management, Seoul University College of Medicine
²Department of Preventive Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Ulsan

Abstract

Background
Korean Hospital Standardization Program(KHSP), as a hospital accreditation program initiated and promoted by Korean Hospital Association since 1981, has played a key role in the hospital quality improvement in structural aspect particularly. Recently, however, KHSP has been critisized by hospitals and health personnels in that it is unpractical to be utilized as an initiative to improve hospital quality. In particular, the section of quality assurance in KHSP, strongly influenced by old version of Hospital Accreditation of Joint Commission in U.S.A., has been required to be fundamentally revised. For design of new criteria in quality assurance section, a survey for evaluation of existing program and collection of opinions for ideal one was conducted.
Methods
For a month in 1994, structured questionnaires were administered by mailing to 470 hospital staffs from 200 hospitals, participated in the survey for the 1994 KHSP in each hospital. The total number of respondents was 116.
Results
Less than half of the respondents(34.5%) value positively on the impact of current KHSP in general on the quality improvement of their hospitals. Moreover, most responses indicated that KHSP should be reorganized towards more practical and applicable one. Current KHSP criteria for quality activities in hospitals were regarded as a unpractical one which should be basically renewed. For new criteria and standards, most respondents emphasized the importance of applicability of those in real situations.
Conclusion
For the KHSP to be effective, new evaluation criteria for quality activities should be more practical and fully accommodated to hospital situations in reality.

Key words Korean Hospital Standardization Program;quality activity;