OBJECTIVE Research has shown that the potential risk for medication errors within the pediatric inpatient population is about 3 times as high as for adults; however, there is limited information regarding the impact of a pediatric pharmacist's contribution to decreasing medication errors and adverse drug events (ADEs). The purpose of this study was to record and analyze all interventions during a 2-month time span in a pediatric teaching hospital to determine the benefit of having a pediatrics-trained clinical pharmacist on the floor. METHODS Pediatric pharmacists prospectively collected data for all interventions and medication errors made between July 1 and August 31, 2010. The pediatric hospital comprises 87 beds, and data were collected during the influx of new pediatric resident interns on the general pediatric ward and pediatric and neonatal intensive care units. RESULTS During the study period, 1315 interventions were recorded, which is an average of 21 interventions per day. Most interventions were made through order entry. Errors made up 24.5% of all interventions, with the most common cause of error being prescribing. Physicians with the least amount of training made the most errors. Of order pages scanned, 5.9% contained an error in the order; however, only 0.2% of all errors reached the patient. CONCLUSIONS This study highlighted the impact a pediatric pharmacist can make on prevention of ADEs and medication errors. Only 0.2% of all errors made during the study period reached the patient owing to interventions made by the pediatric pharmacists, which shows a vast improvement in patient safety.
Neonates with a gestational age of ≥30 weeks who had an SCr level of ≥1 mg/dL within the first 12-24 hours of life were more likely to have an elevated gentamicin trough level than their counterparts with normal SCr levels.
OBJECTIVE To evaluate the utility of procalcitonin (PCT) in identifying cobacterial pneumonia in pediatric patients with known viral respiratory infection. METHODS A retrospective cohort study was conducted in a stand-alone children's hospital during 2 time periods (period 1: October 1, 2014, to March 31, 2015; period 2: October 1, 2015, to March 31, 2016). Patients admitted with any upper respiratory tract infection were included. Exclusion criteria included any condition compromising lung function, age <30 days or >18 years, or lack of PCT (period 2). PCT values of <0.5 ng/mL were considered normal, whereas values of >1.5 ng/mL were used to identify cobacterial pneumonia. Receiver-operator characteristic curves were used with multiple logistic regression to evaluate patient variables. RESULTS Of the 374 pediatric patients evaluated, 64% were classified as having viral pneumonia and 23% as having cobacterial pneumonia across both study time periods. Non-significant predictors of cobacterial pneumonia included temperature (p = 0.0795, p = 0.1466), WBC count (p = 0.8774, p = 0.6675), and C-reactive protein (p = 0.7115, p = 0.3835). Median initial PCT for patients with viral pneumonia was 0.14 ng/mL compared with 1.41 ng/mL in patients with cobacterial pneumonia; median second PCTs were 0.26 ng/mL (viral pneumonia) and 4.55 ng/mL (cobacterial pneumonia). Patients with an elevated PCT had 17.5 times (95% CI, 5.2, 59.1) greater odds of having a cobacterial pneumonia. CONCLUSIONS PCT was found to be strongly associated with cobacterial pneumonia with an underlying viral etiology. Temperature, WBC, and C-reactive protein failed to be significant predictors in differentiating between viral and cobacterial pneumonia.
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