Although patient safety concerns have led to more efforts to reduce adverse events in the last 20 years, a study published in Pediatrics found pediatric adverse event rates were significantly higher in teaching hospitals than in nonteaching ones.
Five things to know:
1. The researchers used the Global Assessment of Pediatric Patient Safety to measure trends in adverse event rates among hospitalized children from 2007-12. The researchers looked at pediatric inpatient records from 16 teaching and nonteaching hospitals and constructed regression models to predict changes in adverse event rates over time.
2. After the researchers examined 3,790 records, they identified 414 adverse events and 210 preventable adverse events.
3. Teaching hospitals had higher adverse event rates than nonteaching hospitals on average (26.2 versus 5.1 adverse events per 1,000 patient days).
4. Additionally, the researchers found chronically ill children had higher adverse events rates than patients without chronic conditions (33.9 versus 14.0 adverse events per 1,000 patient days).
5. The researchers found no significant changes in adverse events rates for both types of hospitals over time.