Why a Trigger Tool for Paediatrics?
Research conducted in the US has shown that children experience a substantial number of potentially preventable patient safety problems. Using an administrative database, Miller et al. (2003) reported incidence rates of patient safety events from 0.2 (foreign body left during procedure) to 154 (birth trauma) per 10,000 discharge records, and noted that children who experienced patient safety problems whilst in hospital were 2 to 18 times at greater risk of death than children who did not experience patient safety problems. In another study, Slonim et al. (2003) reported the rate of US hospital-related medical errors to range from 1.81 to 2.96 per 100 discharges. Unique paediatric in-patient issues, such as strangulation by IV tubing, have been described (Garros et al. 2003), and AEs arising during the course of paediatric emergency care have been reported (Kozer et al. 2002; Goldmann and Kavshal 2002). Patient factors such as developmental change, dependency on adults, different diseas
