“Scared to go to the Hospital”: Inpatient Experiences with Undesirable Events

Involving patients in healthcare safety practices has long been an area of priority and importance. However, we still need to understand how patients perceive undesirable events during their hospital stay, and what role patients play in the prevention of these events. To address this gap, we surveyed pediatric inpatients and caregivers to understand their perspectives on undesirable events. By giving them an opportunity to use their own words to describe their experiences, we found a diverse array of undesirable events. Our qualitative analysis revealed four major types of events that patients and caregivers experienced: mismanagement, communication, policy, and lack of care coordination. We also examined the information needs that patients and caregivers experienced during these situations, and learned how they would prefer to receive this information. Based on these results, we provide recommendations for inpatient technologies that could enable patients to identify and prevent such undesirable events