A recent study, analyzing information from more than 430,000 discharges from 38 American children's hospitals, has measured adverse events that do the most to increase length of stay and overall cost. The study, published in the June issue of Pediatrics, searched for 12 different adverse patient safety events, including infections and other complications resulting from treatment, at hospitals that participated in the Pediatric Health Information Systems database in 2006.

The total number of adverse events was 6,656, about 1.5% of the sample. The most frequent were infection, respiratory failure after surgery, and postoperative sepsis—the last of which led to the longest average excess length of stay, at 23.5 days. Accidental puncture and laceration led to the shortest excess stay of all the adverse events studied, at 2.8 days; and the lowest average cost, at $34,884. The highest cost was attributed to in-hospital mortality following pediatric heart surgery, at $337,226.