"Speak up" project for patient safety, golden jubilee medical center

Medical errors are the third-leading cause of death after Heart disease and cancer, being preventable for quality healthcare, safety and cost-effectiveness. Healthcare processes therefore need a multiprofessional 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 healthcare 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 in patients admitted to the in-patient 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 to contact the copyright owner of the assessment form for an approval of the translated version and secondly to recruit participants in the inpatient departments during February - October 2019, totaling 51 patients. The assessment for consists of 19 questions and 4 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% of those hospitalized, aged between 28-81 years (median 62). Almost all (92.1%) had 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.