TAF PUBLISHING

Medical errors are the third-leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer, being preventable for quality healthcare, safety, and cost-effectiveness. Therefore, healthcare processes need a multi-professional team, especially a care receiver who owns expertise in his disease or illness. From the study that the Joint Commission and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have realized the importance so that they set up a Speak Up program for patient encouragement to be assertive in asking care providers, leading to health care improvement and planning in response to needs, including information resources and answers for any question or concern of the patient. Golden Jubilee Medical Center started the Speak Up program about three years ago, providing information on patients admitted to the inpatient department. It was found to be useful but still lacking concrete and empirical evaluation. This research is a preliminary report of the Speak Up project as a part of the care process improvement. This study aims to 1) develop the Speak Up program model in the inpatient department and 2) support medical error reduction by the program. The study comprises 2 phases: firstly, contact the copyright owner of the assessment form to approve the translated version. Secondly, to recruit participants in the inpatient departments during February - October 2019, totaling 51 patients. The assessment form consists of 19 questions and four in-depth interviews; the hotline telephone number was provided for feedback about the patients' concerns or observations during their stays. The data were analyzed by percentage (%), medians, and standard deviations (S.D.). The study found 51 participating patients to be 2% hospitalized, aged between 28-81 years (median 62). Almost all (92.1%) had the knowledge and understood the program objectives; everyone spoke up at least once. Medication error incidence was zero, while complaint rates were none. Although this research is a pilot study of the Speak Up project as a part of the care process improvement at Golden Jubilee Medical Center, it seemed that patient participation was effective in terms of medication error and service complaints. The authors planned to extend to hand hygiene and infection prevention.