Hospitals ineffectively examine the safety of their processes by relying on voluntary incident reporting (VIR) by clinical staff who are overworked and afraid to report. VIR captures only 1-10% of events, excludes patients and families, and underdetects events in vulnerable groups like patients with language barriers. Patients and families are vigilant partners in care who are adept at identifying errors and AEs. Failing to actively include patients and families in safety reporting and instead relying on flawed VIR presents an important missed opportunity to improve safety. To improve hospital safety, there is a critical need to coproduce (create in partnership with families) effective systems to identify uncaptured errors. Without this information, hospitals are impeded in their ability to improve patient safety. In partnership with diverse families, nurses, physicians, and hospital leaders, investigators created a multicomponent communication intervention to engage families of hospitalized children in safety reporting. The intervention includes 3 elements: (1) a multilingual mobile (email, text, and QR-code) reporting tool prompting families to share concerns and suggestions about safety, (2) family/staff education, and (3) a process for sharing family reports with the unit and hospital so systemic issues can be addressed.
Patient/Family/Caregiver who has been hospitalized on the study unit during the study period (within the past 24 hours) or hospital employee who works at the study sites
Participants speaking all languages are eligible
Admitted awaiting inpatient psychiatric placement
In state custody
Admitted for greater than 24 hours
Same day discharge
Parallel
Family safety reporting intervention
BehavioralFamily safety reporting intervention for patients/families
Medical errors
Investigators will evaluate rates and types of errors detected through the mobile tool and through voluntary incident reporting (VIR). Errors will be validated by physician and chart review in real time using an established process the study team has used in prior studies.
Hospital experience
Measured through the Child HCAHPS survey administered prior to discharge. This survey assesses the experience of pediatric patients. It is available in English and Spanish. Particular items of interest include the "preventing mistakes and helping you report concerns" composite measure, which was the single-lowest rated item across hospitals during field testing. This survey consists of closed-ended and Likert scale items. It was developed by the Center of Excellence for Pediatric Quality Measurement at Boston Children's Hospital with funding from AHRQ, CMS, and CHIPRA. The "helping you report" item is assessed on a 3-point scale, with response options of "No," "Yes, somewhat," and "Yes, definitely," with "Yes, definitely" being the best option.
Hospital safety climate
Measured through the Children's Hospital administered prior to hospital discharge Safety Climate Questionnaire (Cox et al. 2013), which contains 14 questions related to parent perceptions of hospital safety climate. Questions were adapted from the AHRQ Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture. The survey consists of Likert-scale items and was validated using confirmatory factor analysis. Domains include overall perceptions of safety, staff communication openness, parent communication openness,and handoffs and transitions. This survey is included as a QualityTool in the AHRQ's Health Care Innovations Exchange. Scales range from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree (1-5), with Strongly Agree being the best option, except for reverse-coded items, for which Strongly Disagree is the best option.
Patient/parent patient activation
Measured through the PAM (Patient Activation) administered prior to hospital discharge Measure) and the P-PAM (Parent-Patient Activation Measure) to participants. These surveys measure individuals' knowledge, skills, and confidence ("patient activation") in managing their well-being. The 13-item P-PAM was adapted from the PAM measure and is available in English and Spanish and has acceptable validity and reliability in both English and Spanish. The PAM was developed using qualitative methods, Rasch analysis, and test theory psychometric methods. Items on the measure form a unidimensional, probabilistic, Guttman-like scale. Scales range from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree (1-4), with Strongly Agree being the best option.
Patient/family reported safety concerns concerns
Will use data from the family safety reporting tool to analyze the percentage of enrolled patient/families that report through the tool. This will allow the team to understand uptake and compare patient/safety reporting among Spanish-speakers vs English-speakers and less educated vs more educated participants enrolled in the intervention arm.
Patient/family-reported areas for safety improvement
This qualitative outcome is based on a content analysis of patient/family safety reports to identify themes and areas for improvement in real-time that can be shared with the unit and hospital to improve safety.
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Boston Children's Hospital
Lead sponsor
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Collaborator
Pediatric Research in Inpatient Settings (PRIS)
Collaborator
