Root Cause Analysis (RCA) has been widely used as a structured approach to investigate patient safety incidents. RCA helps identify what, how, and why something happened, therefore preventing recurrence of incidents. Since many quality tools can be used during RCA, various formats of RCA exist. If RCAs are performed incorrectly or incompletely, they are likely to produce unusable results. To address this issue, RCA software has been developed. The use of RCA software in investigating patient safety incidents may offer several advantages, such as potential reduction in learning time, shortening of the analytic process, facilitation of collection, analysis, and presentation of data and production of meaningful RCA reports. We introduced six healthcare RCA software and compared characteristics. Results from this study will enable the RCA team to choose proper RCA software.

Root cause analysis (RCA) is systematic process for identifying contributing factors and root causes. It detects system-level vulnerabilities and prevents them from occurring in the future. In many countries, RCA guidelines have been developed and used for these purposes, and various practical tools are suggested according to stages of RCA implementation. In Korea, adverse events occur in 7.2-8.3 percent of inpatients according to studies conducted in hospitals. However, frontline staffs are suffering from lack of knowledge about RCA implementation. This study introduces RCA guidelines that may be used in hospitals to improve the quality of medical care and patient safety.

Purpose: This study was to determine the effect of a smartphone video educational program on educational satisfaction of patients in rehabilitation units at a university hospital. Methods: The subjects of this study were 60 stroke patients recruited and divided into two groups; experimental group (n=30) and control group (n=30). Subjects in the experimental group and control group conducted conventional physical and occupational therapy. In addition, only the experimental group provided smartphone video information for a total of 15 sessions. The video consisted of five episodes (10 minutes each) viewed a total of 15 times (for each video three times). The outcome was assessed by educational satisfaction. Result: After inervention, both groups revealed significant increased awareness of prevention of infection educational satisfaction and prevention from falling educational satisfaction and exercise program educational satisfaction. However, the experimental group was more effective than the control group relative to heightened awareness of increasing prevention of infection prevention from falling and exercise program. Conclusion: We suggest that a smartphone video educational program may be effective in improving awareness of the prevention of infection, prevention from falling, and exercise program educational satisfaction. Therefore, video-based information is beneficial for such patients. Further studies are needed for better understanding of the effectiveness of a smartphone video educational program in rehabilitation units at a university hospital.

Purpose:The purpose of this study was to apply the disinfection method using chlorhexidine in practice on disinfection of vascular access for hemodialysis. Methods: This study was designed as a randomized controlled trial for examining effectiveness on infection of the vascular access device for hemodialysis when using chlorhexidine and betadine/alcohol. One-hundred-thirty study participants were separated into two groups randomly. Infection signs of the vascular access device for hemodialysis were observed and recorded before disinfection on vascular access device. Result: Before the study, there was no difference between the experimental group (chlorhexidine group) and the control group (betadine/alcohol group) in general characteristics and hematological index. Incidence of infection rate of chlorhexidine group was 0 percent and the betadine/alcohol group was 1.5 percent. There was no significant difference between the two groups. Conclusion: This study examined the effectiveness of prevention of infection with the disinfection method using chlorhexidine and betadine/alcohol. The disinfection method using chlorhexidine is considered an effective and alternative method of betadine/alcohol.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of healthcare accreditation and to provide empirical evidence to validate positive effectiveness. Methods:Six electronic databases (KERIS, KoreaMed, NDSL, Ovid-medline, Embase, Cochrane library) were accessed in May 2016. Keywords used were 'accreditation' and 'Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization (JCAHO)'. Of the initially identified 3,008 articles, 60 studies on healthcare accreditation were selected based on inclusion criteria that are hospital accreditation, accreditation by disease and clinical center accreditation. These were retrieved and analyzed. Result: The 60 study results were on the impact of healthcare accreditation. Results were classified into four perspectives of Balanced Score Card (Financial, Customer, Internal Process, Learning & Growth). In internal process perspective, results revealed that healthcare accreditation has made a positive impact on "care process and procedure". In learning & growth perspective, healthcare accreditation has made a positive influence on "leadership", "organizational cultures" and "change mechanisms". However, it revealed that healthcare accreditation does not directly affect financial performance. It is also difficult to reach a definitive conclusion that healthcare accreditation programs affect patient satisfaction of customer and clinical outcome of the internal process. Conclusion: Healthcare accreditation programs provide positive impact on change of care process and building communication-oriented hospital culture. However, more rigorous and diverse research is needed on financial effects and clinical outcomes of healthcare accreditation.