SAN ANTONIO, Texas, Feb. 1 (U.S. Newswire) -- Premature babies are uniquely susceptible to medical errors during hospitalization. A study presented at the Society of Critical Care Medicine's 32nd Critical Care Congress titled, ``Medical Errors in Premature Neonates,'' focuses on this issue.
Medical errors in hospitalized, premature newborns are a relatively rare event, occurring in approximately 1.2 percent of discharged patients but premature newborns may be at particular risk of medical error because of their small size, which makes technical interventions more difficult to achieve. These patients also have complex medical care and are treated with multiple medications.
``The literature surrounding medical errors suggests that adult and pediatric patients with complex medical problems, chronic conditions, or those who require multiple medications are more likely to experience medical errors during hospitalization,'' said David Kanter, MD, Children's National Medical Center, department of neonatology, co-author of the study. ``However, the effects of medical errors on the population of hospitalized premature neonates have not been recently studied.''
Many authors in the field of health services research have begun to focus on medical errors as one component that can improve patient safety in the hospital environment but the majority of this work has been done in the adult population and more recently in the pediatric population. While there have been some qualitative reviews of medical errors in neonates done over the last 15-20 years, there has been few quantitative efforts. This analysis uses a proven methodology that was derived from studies on medical errors in adults and children and provides national estimates from a cross sectional database.
Results of the study using the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) dataset from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) found that males were more likely to experience medical errors than females (20 percent) and African Americans and other minority groups were more likely to sustain a medical error than Caucasians (20 percent and 50 percent respectively).
Other results concluded that elective admissions to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) had a lower rate of medical errors than either emergent or urgent admissions. Elective admissions to the NICU are relatively rare events. Most admissions are for acutely ill neonates that require immediate attention or are newly born premature neonates who require urgent intervention. Elective admissions to the NICU are most often transfers of stable patients for either insurance reasons or parental request. Therefore these patients are no longer in the acute phase of their treatment and have significantly fewer opportunities for medical errors to occur.
The publicly insured (Medicaid) were 50 percent more likely to encounter medical errors than other payor groups. Newborn babies hospitalized at urban teaching centers had a 70 percent increased risk of medical errors than rural hospitals and urban non-teaching centers. The sickest, most complex patients are usually treated in urban teaching centers and this is the likely explanation for the high medical error rate in these settings.
``Many premature neonates will survive their hospitalization with minimal or no complications and live healthy lives,'' said Dr. Kanter. ``However, others will be less fortunate and have complications that result in the need for ongoing healthcare, further hospitalizations and technologies to correct problems acquired from within the neonatal period and this places the premature neonate at particular risk for medical errors. This is the reason for further research and patient safety efforts on this population of patients.''
The Society of Critical Care Medicine is the leading professional organization dedicated to ensuring excellence and consistency in the practice of critical care medicine. With over 10,000 members worldwide, the Society is the only professional organization devoted exclusively to the advancement of multidisciplinary, multiprofessional intensive care through excellence in patient care, professional education, public education, research and advocacy.
Members of the Society include intensivists, critical care nurses, critical care pharmacists, clinical pharmacologists, respiratory care practitioners and other professionals with an interest in critical care, which may include physician assistants, social workers, dieticians, and members of the clergy.
