Annually, thousands of children in the United States experience serious preventable health care harm.1 Although children are at an increased risk of health care harm compared with adults, they also have an important protective factor: their families. Cognizant of this, we believe that improvements in pediatric safety could be accelerated through better utilization of patient and family partnerships.
Patients and families play an important role in health care safety in the hospital and the community as contributors to, detectors of, and mitigators of medical error.2 Parents may not understand or have the skills to manage their children’s home medication regimen, resulting in errors. Families are, however, well placed to detect errors and are equipped with extensive knowledge and astute observations of the child and their conditions. Finally, informed and empowered families can be important advocates for their children and can prevent errors from reaching and subsequently harming their...
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