Patients and Families Improving Safety in Hospitals by Actively Reporting Experiences

Recruiting now · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Family Reported Errors and Adverse Events, Health Disparities, Family Safety Reporting, Patient Safety, Voluntary Incident Reporting, Quality Improvement

In brief

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.

Key facts

Study ID
NCT05407129
Run by
Boston Children's Hospital
People needed
656
Starts
2023-04-13
Expected to finish
2028-10-28
Last updated by the study team
2026-03-24

Who can join

Age: any. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

You may not qualify if…

Where it is running

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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