[Hospital safety in paediatrics].

Paediatrians are rendering care nowadays in environments that are increasingly complex and constantly changing. This results in multiple opportunities to cause unintended harm. In the last 15 years the world has been increasingly aware that care must be delivered in such a way as to ensure the maximum safety of the child. Since 1999, when the American Institute of Medicine published its report To Err is Human, professionals, as well as society, have been examining that care in order to identify the possible risks and implement safety solutions. The depth and breadth of harm incurred have prompted a constant stream of publications seeking to uncover avoidable errors. Patient safety (PS) is defined as ‘‘freedom from accidental injury’’ caused by medical care, such as harm or death attributable to adverse drug events, patient misidentification and health care-associated or health care-acquired infections. In recent decades it has been established that medical errors, previously considered on an individual level, have more far-reaching implications, and it has become clear that the design of health care systems plays a crucial role, since their complexity also leads to mistakes being made. In 2001 the American Academy of Pediatrics published the statement ‘‘Principles of patient safety in pediatrics’’, followed by ‘‘Prevention of medication errors in the pediatric inpatient setting’’ in 2007, ‘‘Patient safety in the