Purging Harm from Health Care
In 2000, the Institute of Medicine released a report To Err is Human, which concluded that between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths per year occur in United States hospitals as a result of error.
Estimates of harm in pediatric healthcare differ and depend on the method used to identify and measure harm. The use of trigger tool methodology has provided estimates of ADE rates for hospitalized children of 11.1 per 100 patients (2) and AE rates in NICU-based patients of 74 per 100 patients (1).The ultimate goal of the patient safety movement in health care is to reduce patient harm.
The 5 Million Lives Campaign defines “medical harm” as unintended physical injury resulting from or contributed to by medical care (including the absence of indicated medical treatment) that requires additional monitoring, treatment or hospitalization, or that results in death. Such injury is considered harm whether or not it is considered preventable, resulted from a medical error or occurred within a hospital.
Working as the 5 Million Lives Campaign pediatric node, the Pediatric Affinity Group, which includes the AAP, CHCA, NACHRI, NICHQ, and several mentor hospitals, is working to unify the pediatric community and build a robust knowledge exchange with the aim of purging harm from children’s health care . The Pediatric Affinity Group provides support to implement change with Pediatric Supplements to the IHI How-to-Guides for 10 of the 12 campaign interventions, and provides a series of webcasts with subject matter and implementation experts to support pediatric clinicians. Also, the Pediatric Affinity Group links pediatric clinicians with mentor hospitals to provide support, advice, clinical expertise, as well as tips about the various interventions in the campaign.
(1)Sharek, P, Horbar, J, Mason, W et al. (2006). Adverse Events in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: Development, Testing, and Findings of an NICU-Focused Trigger Tool to Identify Harm in North American NICU’s. Pediatrics; 118 (4): 1332-1340.
(2)Takata, G, Currier K. Enhancing patient safety through improved detection of adverse drug events. Presented at: 13th Annual Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care (Institute for Healthcare Improvement) ; December 9-12, 2001; Orlando, Fl
