An Innovative and Integrative Approach to Breaking Down Barriers to Traditional Morbidity and Mortality Conference

Children are vulnerable to medical errors. Adverse events are leveraged as educational tools in Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) Conference. Traditionally, M&M has brought angst when discussing adverse events. Our goal was to transition M&M to an educational environment highlighting system failures. A survey was created to capture data on satisfaction, education, and system process improvement. Feedback from the surveys led to several changes, including fostering a multidisciplinary forum, prioritizing educational topics, and emphasizing process improvement. In 5 years, satisfaction with M&M Conference has increased by 29%, with an increase by 50% when asked if process improvement issues were addressed adequately, and 100% of faculty incorporate what they learn from M&M into their practice. By developing a hands-on approach to M&M, we have improved satisfaction and focused on education and system process improvement. This design could be used throughout the medical community to improve discussion of adverse events which should improve patient safety.

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Parental Refusal of Consent in a Large, Multisite Pediatric Critical Care Clinical Trial

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate whether race or ethnicity was independently associated with parental refusal of consent for their child's participation in a multisite pediatric critical care clinical trial.

STUDY DESIGN

We performed a secondary analyses of data from Randomized Evaluation of Sedation Titration for Respiratory Failure (RESTORE), a 31-center cluster randomized trial of sedation management in critically ill children with acute respiratory failure supported on mechanical ventilation. Multivariable logistic regression modeling estimated associations between patient race and ethnicity and parental refusal of study consent.

RESULT

Among the 3438 children meeting enrollment criteria and approached for consent, 2954 had documented race/ethnicity of non-Hispanic White (White), non-Hispanic Black (Black), or Hispanic of any race. Inability to approach for consent was more common for parents of Black (19.5%) compared with White (11.7%) or Hispanic children (13.2%). Among those offered consent, parents of Black (29.5%) and Hispanic children (25.9%) more frequently refused consent than parents of White children (18.2%, P < .0167 for each). Compared with parents of White children, parents of Black (OR 2.15, 95% CI 1.56-2.95, P < .001) and Hispanic (OR 1.44, 95% CI 1.10-1.88, P = .01) children were more likely to refuse consent. Parents of children offered participation in the intervention arm were more likely to refuse consent than parents in the control arm (OR 2.15, 95% CI 1.37-3.36, P < .001).

CONCLUSIONS

Parents of Black and Hispanic children were less likely to be approached for, and more frequently declined consent for, their child's participation in a multisite critical care clinical trial. Ameliorating this racial disparity may improve the validity and generalizability of study findings.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00814099.