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THURSDAY, Dec. 20, 2018 (HealthDay News) — Structured communication involving families, nurses, and physicians can reduce harmful medical errors and improve family experience during pediatric hospitalizations, according to a study published online Dec. 5 in The BMJ<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Alisa Khan, M.D., M.P.H., from Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues conducted a multicenter before- and after-intervention study involving all patients admitted to pediatric inpatient units in seven North American hospitals. Data were included for 3,106 admissions, with 13,171 patient-days, 2,148 parents or caregivers, 435 nurses, 203 medical students, and 586 residents. Families, nurses, and physicians coproduced an intervention that included high-reliability communication emphasizing health literacy, family engagement, and bidirectional communication.<\/p>\n
The researchers did not observe any change in the overall rate of medical errors (41.2 versus 35.8 per 1,000 patient-days for preintervention versus postintervention; P = 0.21); there was a 37.9 percent decrease in harmful errors (20.7 versus 12.9; P = 0.01). There was also a decrease in nonpreventable adverse events (12.6 versus 5.2; P = 0.003). Top box ratings improved for six of 25 components of family-reported experience, while none worsened. Family-centered rounds occurred more frequently postintervention, and improvement was noted in family engagement and nurse engagement.<\/p>\n
“Structuring communication between health care providers and patients and families to better meets (sic<\/i>) the needs of both could be an important, as yet underappreciated, means to improve the safety of patient care,” the authors write.<\/p>\n