UC Irvine

Pediatrics is considered a low-liability medical specialty with respect to the odds of facing a malpractice claim, yet indemnity payments made by pediatricians are among the most expensive of all physicians. Little is known about pediatric malpractice risks from a patient-perspective; especially non-obstetric risks in the infant population, and whether certain pediatric age groups are higher-risk for malpractice injuries. This study uses ten years of malpractice reports from the National Practitioner Data Bank (n = 70,441) to compare pediatric (infant, child, and teenage groups) to adult malpractice events. We compare the severity of injuries and the type of medical errors that were reported, and calculate rates for malpractice reports on a per capita (per 100K population) level for each age group. We found that the pediatric population is a heterogeneous patient population with unique age-specific risk factors. On a per-capita basis, non-obstetric infant malpractice claims were much more common than adult claims, whereas non-infant pediatric claims were less common than in adults. Devastating non-fatal permanent injuries such as brain damage and paralysis were exponentially more common in the infant population across most non-obstetric medical error types. Overall, diagnostic and treatment-related errors were more common among pediatric claims than in adults, whereas surgical and medication-related errors were less common. While previous research has identified the significance of obstetric injuries in the infant population, future safety and training efforts should also focus on reducing the potential for negligence that can lead to non-obstetric paralysis or brain damage injuries in the infant population, particularly in the realms of diagnosis and treatment.