A systems-centred approach to reducing medication error: Should pre-hospital providers and emergency departments dose children by age during resuscitation?
Mieke FosterAndrew TaggPublished in: Journal of paediatrics and child health (2019)
The high-risk, high-stress and high-stakes environment of out-of-hospital or emergency department paediatric resuscitation is prone to human error, and medication errors are common. This could be contributing to the difference in survival rate of resuscitation in the out-of-hospital versus inpatient setting. Medication for children during resuscitation requires estimation of the child's weight and calculation of the corresponding drug dose. Whilst both of these steps can lead to error, calculation errors (including 10-fold errors) are much more common and harmful than weight errors. Previous solutions aim to optimise each stage of the medication dosing process. Currently, Australian guidelines suggest using the highly inaccurate original advanced paediatric life support formula, weight = 2 × (age + 4), to dose medications in these settings. This means age is converted to weight, which is then converted to dose. There is no evidence that this is causing harm to patients. Therefore, it could be suggested that age could safely be converted straight to dose according to preset doses. This eliminates the need for any weight estimation or dose calculation, thus reducing the potential for error and harm.
Keyphrases
- adverse drug
- emergency department
- cardiac arrest
- body mass index
- weight loss
- healthcare
- physical activity
- weight gain
- acute care
- endothelial cells
- patient safety
- mental health
- newly diagnosed
- prognostic factors
- body weight
- septic shock
- end stage renal disease
- palliative care
- drug induced
- risk assessment
- preterm infants
- clinical practice
- patient reported outcomes
- low birth weight