Studies
The significant and scientifically unequivocal clinical benefit of PaedER has already been demonstrated in two high-ranking clinical trials and has been published internationally (1,2). Both papers thus demonstrated that the use of the PaedER prevents life-threatening medication errors in pediatric emergencies.
Both papers are published “Open Access”, so they are accessible free of charge and barrier-free. The observed effect was a
- Prospective nationwide study (1); comparison without versus with ruler; ruler had to be used and participants knew about the study; reduction in serious medication errors across all medications by 90%, for epinephrine by 100%.
- Intervention study of the effect of PaedER as well as training on error rates over a 10-year period in Cologne (2); comparison before and after the interventions. Whether the ruler was used was left to emergency physicians; participants were unaware of the study; reduction in serious medication errors across all medications by 55%, for epinephrine by 78%.
For example, epinephrine dosing with a power error of 10 is unlikely to be consistent with survival (3). Such an error corresponds to a dosage of 1,000% of the recommended dosage, and such errors occur regularly in pediatric emergencies (4). The only papers from real prehospital care of children (no simulation studies), found an average deviation with epinephrine administration of 808% (5) and 882%, respectively. It must therefore be assumed that children regularly die as a result of medication errors.
The PaedER is the only tool internationally to date for which a reduction in such threatening and sometimes fatal errors in the real care of pediatric emergencies has been demonstrated.
