Keywords
Citation
(2003), "USA. Child safety problems in hospital", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 16 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijhcqa.2003.06216fab.010
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited
USA. Child safety problems in hospital
USA
Child safety problems in hospital
Keywords: Paediatrics, AHRQ, Patient safety problems, Kids Inpatient Database
A study, Patient Safety Events During Pediatric Hospitalization, by researchers at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, says that children experienced substantial numbers of potentially preventable patient safety problems during hospital stays in 1997. The study, published in the 2 June issue of the journal Pediatrics, is the first, comprehensive examination of the types of patient safety problems that children experience in hospitals.
The study evaluated patient safety problems involving in-hospital procedures using hospital discharge data to identify patient safety problems and was only able to capture some types of problems, including lacerations and perforations during elective surgery, post-operative infection, transfusion reactions, foreign bodies left during procedures, infections from procedures, misadventures in obstetrical care and anesthesia (e.g., shock during delivery or due to anesthesia), and birth trauma. The authors claim that the total number of patient safety problems would have been much greater if medication errors could have been included in the study. They found that patient safety rates range from 0.2 (foreign body left during procedure) to 154.0 (birth trauma) problems per 10,000 discharge records, and that those who experienced a patient safety problem in the hospital faced a 2-18 times greater risk of death than children who did not have such a problem. The researchers also found that the majority of birth trauma consisted of long bone and skull fractures, excluding collar bone, and that these infants were more likely to be black or Hispanic, and to be born in institutions that had no residents on staff, had a lower percentage of beds in intensive care units, or had a lower volume of inpatient surgical procedures.
To carry out the study, the researchers, M.R. Miller, A. Elixhauser, and C. Zhan used the Kids Inpatient Database (KID), and AHRQ's Pediatric Safety Indicators. KID is a compilation of data such as hospital stays, mortality rates, and charges from 22 states collected as part of AHRQ's Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project database, which covers approximately 3.8 million hospital discharge records for children under 19 years of age and can be used to generate national estimates.
Further information: more information about AHRQ's Pediatric Safety Indicators can be found at: www.qualityindicators.ahrq.gov/ For information about KID go to: www.ahrq.gov/data/hcup/