Table 2 Characteristics of reporting systems.

Reference	What is reported?	Reporting climate	Area of reporting	Reporter	Characteristics of report form	Review/analysis of reports	Systems‐oriented52	Time until feedback(months)
Folli50 USA 1987	Errant medication order: ordering physician and pharmacist agreed on the need to change the order	Not described	Paediatric wards including NICU	Pharmacist reviews all medication orders and reports all errant orders	Type of medication order Patient age Severity Unit in which patient received the order	Member of the paediatric faculty or attending physician Two paediatric clinical pharmacist practitioners	–	>3
Vincer47 Canada 1989	Medication incidents Incident has reached the patient (except for errors of omission).	Non‐punitive Voluntary	NICU	Either self reported or reported by another person who identified incident	Type of incident Patient information and severity Cause of incident Time	Committee of three:Neonatologist Nursing unit coordinator Clinical neonatal pharmacist	+/−	<1
Raju39 USA 1989	Medication errors Medication dose must reach the patient, except for errors of omission (criteria by American Society of Hospital Pharmacists, 1988)	Non‐punitive Anonymous Voluntary	NICU/PICU	ICU staff, person who noticed the error	Type Severity Error attribution Time	Manager from the pharmacy department Department of quality assurance	?	<1
Frey23 Switzerland 2000	Overall critical incident monitoring Critical incident: any event which might have reduced, or did reduce, the safety margin for the patient	Non‐punitive Anonymous Voluntary	NICU/PICU	ICU staff fills out form immediately on becoming aware of a critical incident	Narrative, including contributing factors Patient information and severity Incident attributionTime and location	Critical incident group:Two nurses One consultant	+	1–3
Ross51 UK 2000	Medication error: wrong medicine, wrong dose, wrong route, wrong preparation, wrong time, unauthorised drug or omission, wrong dispensing, or to someone known to be allergic	Gradual change from punitive to non‐punitive Mandatory	Paediatric wards, including NICU	Hospital‐wide reporting, all staff	Standardised form in all departments Not further specified	Head of department	+	1–3
Kaushal15 USA 2001	Medication errors and (potential) (intercepted) ADEs. An ADE is an injury that results from a drug. A preventable ADE is an ADE associated with a medication error	Non‐punitive Non‐anonymous Voluntary	Paediatric wards including NICU	House officers, nurses and pharmacists report verbally to trained data collectors	Type of error Name, dose, route and category of drug Point in system where error occurred	Two physicians(severity, preventability and attribution were recorded)	+	<1
Frey24 Switzerland 2002	Drug related critical incidents A critical incident is a harmful and potentially harmful event	Non‐punitive Anonymous Voluntary	NICU/PICU	ICU staff fill out form immediately on becoming aware of a critical incident	Narrative, including contributing factors Patient information and severity Time and location Was patient harm prevented by check?Proposals for prevention Were patient/parents informed?	Quality assurance group:One consultant Three senior nurses One teaching nurse One junior nurse One person responsible for ICU equipment	+	1–3
Simpson41 UK 2004	Medication errors identified through critical incident reports	Non‐punitive	NICU	Nursing or medical staff involved in the error, or the clinical pharmacist	Not specified	Risk management group:Clinical pharmacist Consultant neonatologist Neonatal specialist registrar Senior nurse(severity was recorded)	+	<1
Suresh43 USA 2004	Errors that resulted in harm to the patient as well as near misses	Non‐punitive Anonymous Voluntary	NICU	739 Healthcare providers (physicians, nurses, pharmacists and others) from a total of 54 NICUs were authorised to report to hypertext mark‐up language forms	External, internet based Phase 1: 4 free text boxes (title, description, key words, references)Phase 2: structured scroll‐down form:severity, time and location, type, contributing and mitigating factors, changes to prevent recurrence	Members of Center for Patient Safety in neonatal intensive care	+	<1
Kanter14 USA 2004	Medical error: International Classification of Diseases (ICD)‐9 diagnosis codes 996–999 (complications of medical or surgical care)	Not specified	Hospital discharge data of neonates	Not specified	Discharge records with diagnostic, utilisation and patient information	Healthcare Cost and Utilisation Project of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality	–	Not specified