A Survey of Risk Management Practices in Japanese Home-based Nursing Care Stations

• Published in: Iryo To Shakai Vol. 15; no. 3; pp. 3_23 - 3_36
• Main Authors: Ogata, Yasuko, Fukuda, Takashi, Hashimoto, Michio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: The Health Care Science Institute 2005
• Subjects: Accident; Home Care Nursing; Incident; Japan; Risk Management
• ISSN: 0916-9202; 1883-4477
• DOI: 10.4091/iken.15.3_23

Because of the rapidly growing elderly population and shortening length of stay in hospital, each year more patients with serious health conditions must recuperate at home. Therefore, safety in home care is an urgent and important issue. This study's purpose is to investigate risk management practices and the occurrence rates of incidents and accidents in Home-based Nursing Care Stations ("Stations") in Japan. The subjects are 2,000 Stations throughout Japan that were selected by random sampling. Questionnaires about risk management practices were mailed to Stations in January 2005. We defined "accident" as "an event connected with nursing care that causes unintentional harm." An "incident" is "an upsetting event connected with nursing care that could have caused harm, but didn't." The person harmed or upset might be a patient, family member, or nurse. The response rate was 15.5%. Seventy-one percent of Stations reported having a risk management system and 80% of those had someone to manage it; mostly the manager is a nurse or administrator of the Station itself. Approximately eighty percent of Stations recorded accidents and incidents. The average occurrence rate in December 2004 was 0.15 accidents and 0.50 incidents per Station. One possible indication from the low response rate is that many Stations do not presently view risk management as important or interesting. Questionnaire responses suggest that future studies investigate problems such as insufficient human resources, insufficient training, and lack of evaluation criteria for risk management practices.