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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2004;292:426.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Every year, thousands of medical injuries, errors, and other events related to patient safety are experienced by children in hospitals. According to a new study from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, an examination of 5.7 million hospital discharge records from 2000 for children and adolescents younger than 19 years from 27 states documented 51 615 patient safety events (Pediatrics. 2004;113:1741-1746). Infants and children with Medicaid insurance were more likely to experience these events than other groups of children.

Patient safety events increased length of stay, charges, and the rate of in-hospital deaths of children. For example, infections from medical procedures caused a 30-day increase in the average length of stay and increased charges of more than $121 000 per discharge. Postoperative respiratory failure increased the rate of in-hospital deaths by as much as 76%. The combined excess charges for such patient safety events resulted in . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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