POLICY STATEMENT |
Prevention of Medication Errors in the Pediatric Inpatient Setting
Although medication errors in hospitals are common, medication errors that result in death or serious injury occur rarely. Even before the Institute of Medicine reported on medical errors in 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics and its members had been committed to improving the health care system to provide the best and safest health care for infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. This commitment includes designing health care systems to prevent errors and emphasizing the pediatrician’s role in this system. Human and device errors can lead to preventable morbidity and mortality. National and state legislative actions have heightened public awareness of these events. All involved persons, beginning with the physician and including every member of the health care team, must be better educated about and engaged in the several steps recommended to decrease these errors. The safe administration of medications to hospitalized infants and children requires additional specific safeguards that are above and beyond those for adult patients. Pediatricians should help hospitals develop effective programs for safely providing medications, reporting medication errors, and creating an environment of medication safety for all hospitalized pediatric patients.
Abbreviations: IOM, Institute of Medicine • ADE, adverse drug event • USP, US Pharmacopeia • CPOE, computerized physician or prescriber order entry • AAP, American Academy of Pediatrics • JCAHO, Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations
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Statement of reaffirmation:
-
AAP Publications Reaffirmed, January 2007
Pediatrics 119: 1031-1031.[Full Text]
The following policy statement has been revised:
- Prevention of Medication Errors in the Pediatric Inpatient Setting
Pediatrics 102: 428-430.[Full Text]
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