Association between language, serious adverse events, and length of stay among hospitalized children.

Objective: To evaluate the risk for serious/sentinel adverse events among hospitalized children according to race, ethnicity, and language and to evaluate factors affecting length of stay associated with serious/sentinel adverse events.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of all pediatric inpatients at a large children's hospital from October 2007 to October 2009. We evaluated the relationship between self-reported race, ethnicity, and primary language; with having a serious or sentinel adverse event, defined as an unexpected occurrence involving risk of death or serious injury; or a potentially harmful event resulting from nonstandard practice.

The pediatric assessment triangle: a novel approach for the rapid evaluation of children.

The Pediatric Assessment Triangle (PAT) has become the cornerstone for the Pediatric Education for Prehospital Professionals course, sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics. This concept for emergency assessment of children has been taught to more than 170,000 health care providers worldwide. It has been incorporated into most standardized American life support courses, including the Pediatric Advanced Life Support course, Advanced Pediatric Life Support course, and the Emergency Nursing Pediatric Course.

Barotrauma: a complication of positive pressure for nasal foreign body removal in a pediatric patient.

Emergency physicians are frequently called on to remove impacted nasal foreign bodies in children. Multiple positive pressure techniques for the removal of nasal foreign bodies have been described. This case report details a previously unreported complication of barotrauma after the use of a published positive pressure technique that uses unmodulated piped hospital oxygen (wall oxygen) in the emergency department setting.

Medical error disclosure among pediatricians: choosing carefully what we might say to parents.

Objective: To determine whether and how pediatricians would disclose serious medical errors to parents.

Design: Cross-sectional survey.

Setting: St Louis, Missouri, and Seattle, Washington.

Evaluation of an anonymous system to report medical errors in pediatric inpatients.

Objective: To compare reports of medical errors in hospitalized children submitted using an electronic, anonymous reporting system with those submitted via traditional incident reports.

Study Design: During the 3-month study period in 2003, reports of medical errors from 2 units at a large children's hospital were made using an electronic, anonymous system. Three reviewers independently evaluated each report and determined whether the events described constituted a medical error.

Reporting and disclosing medical errors: pediatricians' attitudes and behaviors.

Objective: To characterize pediatricians' attitudes and experiences regarding communicating about errors with the hospital and patients' families.

Design: Cross-sectional survey.

Setting: St Louis, Mo, and Seattle, Wash.

Use of incident reports by physicians and nurses to document medical errors in pediatric patients.

Objectives: To describe the proportion and types of medical errors that are stated to be reported via incident report systems by physicians and nurses who care for pediatric patients and to determine attitudes about potential interventions for increasing error reports.

Methods: A survey on use of incident reports to document medical errors was sent to a random sample of 200 physicians and nurses at a large children's hospital. Items on the survey included proportion of medical errors that were reported, reasons for underreporting medical errors, and attitudes about potential interventions for increasing error reports.

Common emergent pediatric neurologic problems.

Although there are a variety of neurologic disease processes that the emergency physician should be aware of the most common of these include seizures, closed head injury, headache, and syncope. When one is evaluating a patient who has had a seizure, differentiating between febrile seizures, afebrile seizures, and SE helps to determine the extent of the work-up. Febrile seizures are typically benign, although a diagnosis of meningitis must not be missed.

Education of Out-of-Hospital Emergency Medical Personnel in Pediatrics: Report of a National Task Force.

The Pediatric Education Task Force has developed a list of major topics and skills for inclusion in pediatric curricula for EMS providers. Areas of controversy in the management of pediatric patients in the prehospital setting are outlined, and helpful learning tools are identified. [Gausche M, Henderson DB, Brownstein D, Foltin GL, for the Pediatric Education Task Force: Education of out-of-hospital emergency medical personnel in pediatrics: Report of a National Task Force.