Improving Safety Recommendations Before Implementation: A Simulation-Based Event Analysis to Optimize Interventions Designed to Prevent Recurrence of Adverse Events.

INTRODUCTION: Pediatric inpatients are at high risk of adverse events (AE). Traditionally, root cause analysis was used to analyze AEs and identify recommendations for change. Simulation-based event analysis (SBEA) is a protocol that systematically reviews AEs by recreating them using in situ simulated patients, to understand clinician decision making, improve error discovery, and, through guided sequential debriefing, recommend interventions for error prevention. Studies suggest that these interventions are rarely tested before dissemination. This study investigates the use of simulation to optimize recommendations generated from SBEA before implementation. METHODS: Recommendations and interventions developed through SBEA of 2 hospital-based AEs (event A: error of commission; event B: error of detection) were tested using in situ simulation. Each scenario was repeated 8 times. Interventions were modified based on participant feedback until the error stopped occurring and data saturation was reached. RESULTS: Data saturation was reached after 6 simulations for both scenarios. For scenario A, a critical error was repeated during the first 2 scenarios using the initial interventions. After modifications, errors were corrected or mitigated in the remaining 6 scenarios. For scenario B, 1 intervention, the nursing checklist, had the highest impact, decreasing average time to error detection to 6 minutes. Based on feedback from participants, changes were made to all but one of the original proposed interventions. CONCLUSIONS: Even interventions developed through improved analysis techniques, like SBEA, require testing and modification. Simulation optimizes interventions and provides opportunity to assess efficacy in real-life settings with clinicians before widespread implementation.

Simulation-Based Event Analysis Improves Error Discovery and Generates Improved Strategies for Error Prevention.

INTRODUCTION: An adverse event (AE) is a negative consequence of health care that results in unintended injury or illness. The study investigates whether simulation-based event analysis is different from traditional event analysis in uncovering root causes and generating recommendations when analyzing AEs in hospitalized children. METHODS: Two simulation scenarios were created based on real-life AEs identified through the hospital's Safety Reporting System. Scenario A involved an error of commission (inpatient drug error) and scenario B involved detecting an error that already occurred (drug infusion error). Each scenario was repeated 5 times with different, voluntary clinicians. Content analysis, using deductive and inductive approaches to coding, was used to analyze debriefing data. Causes and recommendations were compiled and compared with the traditional event analysis. RESULTS: Errors were reproduced in 60% (3/5) of scenario A. In scenario B, participants identified the error in 100% (5/5) of simulations (average time to error detection = 15 minutes). Debriefings identified reasons for errors including product labeling, memory aid interpretation, and lack of standard work for patient handover. To prevent error, participants suggested improved drug labeling, specialized drug kits, alert signs, and handoff checklists. Compared with traditional event analysis, simulation-based event analysis revealed unique causes for error and new recommendations. CONCLUSIONS: Using simulation to analyze AEs increased unique error discovery and generated new recommendations. This method is different from traditional event analysis because of the immediate clinician debriefings in the clinical environment. Hospitals should consider simulation-based event analysis as an important addition to the traditional process.

Parental characteristics and perspectives pertaining to neonatal visits to the emergency department: a multicentre survey.

BACKGROUND: Parents take neonates to the emergency department for many reasons, often nonurgent, pressuring an already burdened system. We aimed to characterize these visits and families to identify potential strategies to decrease neonatal emergency department visits. METHODS: We developed and implemented a survey that explored characteristics of neonates and parents/guardians evaluated in the emergency department, perspectives of parents and use of health care services. Parents presenting with a neonate to the emergency department in 5 large academic hospitals in Ontario were surveyed between December 2013 and June 2015. We used descriptive statistics to report survey data and explored correlations between factors. RESULTS: A total of 1533 surveys were completed. The most common reasons for presenting were jaundice (441 [28.8%]) and feeding issues (251 [16.4%]). The majority of respondents (73.9% [1104/1494]) had received advice before going to the emergency department. In most cases (86.4% [954/1104]), this was from a health care provider, who frequently advised going to the emergency department. Although most parents (86.8% [1280/1475]) reported high confidence in caring for a sick or injured child, 42.3% (643/1519) were unsure of the severity, and most (90.4% [578/639]) of these parents felt that the infant required assessment immediately or the same day. Of parents who felt the condition was not serious, 83.2% (198/238) thought that same-day evaluation was required. Nearly half of respondents (44.4% [621/1400]) said they would have gone to their health care provider with a same-day appointment, and 28.1% (344/1225) would have gone to their care provider with a next-day appointment. INTERPRETATION: Parents' reported confidence in caring for sick or injured infants does not match the perceived urgency of neonatal conditions, which likely contributes to emergency department overuse. Any system to decrease nonurgent emergency department use by neonates would need to be immediately responsive, providing same-day help.