Pediatric Patient Safety Events during Hospitalization: Approaches to Accounting for Institution‐Level Effects

Abstract

Objective. To determine the rates, patient, and institutional characteristics associated with the occurrence of patient safety indicators (PSIs) in hospitalized children and the degree of statistical difference derived from using three approaches of controlling for institution level effects. Data Source. Pediatric Health Information System Dataset consisting of all pediatric discharges (300 beds), which all had higher rates of PSIs than their reference groups in the bivariable logistic regression results. The three different approaches of adjusting for institution-level effects demonstrated that there were similarities in both the clinical and statistical significance across each of the models. Conclusions. Institution-level effects can be appropriately controlled for by using a variety of methods in the analyses of administrative data. Whenever possible, resource-conservative methods should be used in the analyses especially if clinical implications are minimal.