Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, JAMA, Outcomes & Safety / 01.03.2017
Family Input Improves Hospital Safety Surveillance
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Alisa Khan, MD, MPH
Staff Physician
Instructor in Pediatrics
Boston Children's Hospital
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Medical errors are known to be a leading cause of death in the United States. However, the true rate at which errors and adverse events occur in medicine is believed to be even higher than what has been found through the most rigorous patient safety studies.
Families are typically excluded from safety surveillance efforts, both in research and operationally in hospitals. We found that including families in safety reporting at four pediatric hospitals led to significantly higher error/adverse event detection rates, compared to the safety surveillance methodology typically considered most rigorous and highest yield in safety research. In addition, families reported errors/adverse events at similar rates as providers and at several-fold higher rates than the hospital incident reports which typically form the basis of operational hospital safety surveillance.
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