Key partner priorities for measures of safe outpatient paediatric medication use.

Background and objectives: Paediatric medication use is at high risk for errors due to factors such as weight-based dosing and liquid medications. In the outpatient setting, where most children take their medicines, errors are common and can be dangerous. However, errors are not widely measured in this setting. Continuous measurement is the first step towards quality improvement. Our aim was to collaborate with a variety of professional and patient/family key partners to identify types of measures needed to assess paediatric outpatient medication errors, including those that occur in the home.

Methods: We conducted qualitative interviews and concept mapping with parents, pharmacists, paediatricians, nurses, health system leaders and healthcare organisational leaders. Using concept mapping, a multiple-step structured process of surveys, sorting and analysis using multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis, participants generated measures and prioritised those they considered most important and feasible to measure in future medication error instruments. At the same time, interviews identified gaps in current measurement approaches and top priorities to fill these gaps. Results were compared during analysis.

Results: Concept mapping participants (n=71) contributed ideas which key partner panel (n=9) mapped into seven clusters: prescribing errors, giving medication/administration, pharmacy dispensing, dosing tools and education, monitoring for problems, error surveillance and family partnership in understanding errors. Interview participants (n=24) highlighted the need for health system measures of safe outpatient medication used for quality improvement, including feasible measures related to home administration, dispensing errors and measures of harm. The ability to segment data by high-risk populations (eg, preferred language) was a priority.

Conclusions: Measures of safe administration at home were the highest priority for parents and healthcare professionals. Development of these measures is critical as no scalable measures for this element of care are available. These and other prioritised measures will likely need to include caregiver report.