Children harmed by drug errors in hospitals

April 17th, 2008

A new study published this month in the journal Pediatrics has found that drug mix-ups, accidental overdoses and bad drug reactions harm one out of 15 hospitalized children. These results are from the first scientific test of a new method of detecting these problems.

The new monitoring method is a list of 15 “triggers” on young patients’ charts that suggest possible drug-related harm. In includes use of specific antidotes for drug overdoses, suspicious side effects and certain lab tests. By contrast, traditional methods include nonspecific patient chart reviews and voluntary error reporting lead to less than 4 percent of the problems detected in the new study. 

The results of the new study are much higher than earlier estimates. Researchers found a rate of 11 drug-related harmful events for every 100 hospitalized children compared with an earlier estimate of two per 100.

These findings suggest that 7.3%, or 540,000 hospitalized children per year are subject to drug errors. Experts say that this may even be too low an estimate because the study’s sample did not include general community hospitals where most children are treated and it only reviewed selected charts.

For the study, 960 randomly selected medical charts of children treated at 12 freestanding children’s hospitals nationwide in 2002. (source)