Grant: Planning Grants: Priority Announcement - Reproductive and Child Health

Patient safety is an important issue for the Canadian health care system. Each year thousands of patients experience harm and even death as a result of medical errors, many of which are preventable. Patients who are seen in the emergency room, and especially children, are thought to be particularly at risk of experiencing a medical error. In spite of this risk, most of the research on this topic has taken place in the minority of patients who are hospitalized, and not on the majority who go home after their emergency room visit. The goals of this study is to bring together a group of experts in emergency medicine, pediatrics, and patient safety to determine research priorities to address this problem and to develop a research study that will determine the risk that children face of experiencing medical error in the emergency departments across Canada.