By Lee Kyung-min
The Korean health system lacks clear mechanisms to assure patient safety, according to a report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Monday.
Efforts should be undertaken to build a system in Korea as part of a national program on patient safety including feedback mechanisms to assist medical associations maintain professional standards.
The recommendation reflects efforts by health systems across OECD countries over the past two decades that have sought to monitor individual clinical performance to identify undesirable trends in clinical practice and improve this.
The systems are necessary to monitor breaches in patient safety and provide a means for the delivery of feedback on their experience of health care services, it added.
The report said Korea has world-class information technology infrastructure and health care data which should be harnessed to improve quality, and drive policy, saying the health system does not make the most of the data available to it.
Korea does not have a strong community-based primary-care system, resulting in patients preferring to seek out hospitals, which, too often, deliver what is possible for them and not what is most appropriate for their long-term health.