Necessity of Introducing Assistant Staff to Support Administrative Tasks Related Patient Safety

환자안전 전담인력의 업무 지원을 위한 보조인력 도입에 관한 연구

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to, present basic data on the necessity of introducing assistant staff to support administrative tasks related to patient safety. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. The participants (n=103) of this study were nurses, working at general and long-term care hospitals in Korea. Data were collected using structured questionnaires on August 29, 2019 and analyzed with SPSS 25.0. Specifically, data analysis was conducted using frequencies, mean and standard deviation, independent t-test, and X²-test. Results: Assistant staff was needed to support patient safety tasks, but this required nurses who could fully perform patient safety tasks by supplementing their work experience rather than employees who only support administrative tasks. This is because the hospital's patient safety management activities are difficult to distinguish between administrative tasks and patient safety tasks, and even nurses with five years of work experience, must be aware of the basic concepts and should have knowledge of patient safety and have gained experience in managing the patient safety activities. Conclusion: Hospitals are calling for an improvement in the system that increases the number of workers in charge of patient safety affairs and lowers their work experience, rather than the introduction of assistant staff who help with patient safety work.