Errors in Hospitals Could Jeopardize Children
JOIE CHEN, CNN ANCHOR: If you have ever put your child in a hospital, you know it can be upsetting it can be. And a study out today gives parents yet another reason for some worry. On that, here's CNN medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen.</s>ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Two years ago, Dr. Carol Lay's 7-year-old daughter, Jacklyn (ph), was on a morphine pump following surgery to fix a broken elbow. In the middle of the night, Dr. Lay says she found her daughter lying unconscious in her hospital bed.</s>DR. CAROL LAY: The pump itself was programmed -- was misprogrammed, but very difficult to program, so that it was giving her way, way too much morphine.</s>COHEN: Dr. Lay, an internist, says she and the nurses revived Jacklyn (ph). And a new study finds that errors like this one are common on pediatric wards. The study's authors examined nearly 11,000 medication orders for children in two Boston hospitals, and found 115, or about 1 percent, were incorrect and could have harmed the child. The type of errors varied. Sometimes the dosage was wrong, sometimes the drug was given too often or not often enough.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Children can't communicate as readily to us when they might perhaps be suffering a side effect to a medication, or if we administer them a medication that's incorrect, or perhaps intended for the patient in the bed next to them.</s>COHEN: The ward with the highest rate of potentially harmful drug mistakes: the neonatal intensive care unit. The study authors say preemies don't have the reserves to recover as easily from a mistake. (on camera): The study authors found that nearly all the errors in their study, some 93 percent, could have been avoided if the hospitals had used computer programs designed to catch mistakes. (voice-over): Some hospitals have written their own programs because it's hard to find one for pediatric patients that's commercially available.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a technology that today is custom- made, it's homegrown, and it's not yet at a point where it can be used widespread throughout hospitals.</s>COHEN: One of the study authors says it's worth it for hospitals to write their own. Studies have shown it's a proven technique for cutting down on medication errors that harm patients.