Adverse drug events are medication that cause harm to a child. Children’s medications are usually dosed by weight which adds an additional level of complexity to the ordering and delivery of medications.
Underdosing, overdosing, or giving the wrong medication to a child can potentially have serious consequences.
All medication events are reported and a specialized team will investigate how these events occurred. Each event is tracked and followed until a resolution is met. We follow these metrics every month and create graphs and charts to measure how we are improving over time so we can compare ourselves to other hospitals.
We are part of a national collaborative called the Children’s Hospital Solutions for Patient Safety (CHSPS) in which hospitals share ideas and data to work together to decrease the number of adverse drug events nationwide. We use a computerized order entry system for physicians, and a pharmacist and a nurse check all orders. Our pharmacy team investigates all medication errors with a focus on constantly improving our process. We report all medication errors regardless of whether they cause harm to a patient.
