Development of the Korean Patient Safety Incidents Code Classification System

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Medical Informatics

Background:

• Patient safety is crucial for healthcare quality.
• Understanding patient safety incidents in Korea using administrative data has been limited.
• Diagnosis codes offer a potential avenue for assessing patient safety.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a Korean patient safety incident code classification system.
• To identify the characteristics of these codes.
• To enhance the use of diagnosis codes for patient safety assessment in Korea.

Main Methods:

• Literature review to select relevant Korean Standard Classification of Diseases 7 codes.
• Delphi method with two review rounds to assess code applicability for patient safety incidents.
• Classification of verified diagnosis codes by incident type.

Main Results:

• 4509 Korean Standard Classification of Diseases 7 codes were identified as applicable.
• Codes were categorized into 6 main types and 35 subcategories.
• The most frequent incident types were medication-related (38.1%), operation/procedure-related (29.7%), and patient care-related (22.0%).

Conclusions:

• The developed system provides a foundation for estimating patient safety incidents via diagnosis codes.
• Increased utilization and accuracy of these codes can lead to effective patient safety indicators in Korea.
• Clinician awareness and adoption of the classification system are essential for its success.