The News:
Medical missteps touch one in 15 kids, study finds
By Lindsey Tanner The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 04/06/2008 11:49:50 PM MDT
CHICAGO — Medicine mixups, accidental overdoses and bad drug reactions harm roughly one out of every 15 hospitalized children, according to a new study.
That number is far higher than earlier estimates and bolsters concerns already heightened by well-publicized cases such as the accidental drug overdose of actor Dennis Quaid's newborn twins in November.
"These data and the Dennis Quaid episode are telling us that . . . these kinds of errors and experiencing harm as a result of your health care is much more common than people believe. It's very concerning," said Dr. Charles Homer of the National Initiative for Children's Healthcare Quality. His group helped develop a new detection method used in the study.
Researchers found a rate of 11 drug-related harmful events for every 100 hospitalized children. That compares with an earlier estimate of two per 100 hospitalized children, based on traditional detection methods. The rate reflects the fact that some children experienced more than one drug-treatment mistake.
The new estimate translates to 7.3 percent of hospitalized children, or about 540,000 children each year, a calculation based on government data. Read on...
The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal Pediatrics.
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