# The Family Input for Quality and Safety (FIQS) Study

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2020 · $720,179

## Abstract

Abstract
Adverse patient safety event rates remain stubbornly high in hospitals. For children, adverse events are 1.5-2
times more common than in adult inpatients (40.0 vs. 25.1 harms/100 admissions). This proposal uses an
untapped source of safety event reporting—patients and family members of hospitalized pediatric patients—to
address knowledge gaps identified by the NICHD: the epidemiology of pediatric safety events; strengths and
limitations of current methods of error reporting systems; methods to prevent pediatric medication errors; and
the development of learning health systems to address inpatient pediatric safety. Text messaging and mobile
phone applications technologies offer the opportunity to gather patients' and families' safety reports in real-time
and anonymously, addressing limitations of prior work. Our mobile phone-based approach, Family Input for
Quality and Safety (FIQS), was developed in partnership with families and clinicians, and was pilot-tested on a
pediatric medical-surgical unit, with enthusiastic engagement from participants and staff. The objectives of this
proposal are to address the rigor of prior work in the following aims, while testing the approach in other hospital
units (e.g., ICU, hematology-oncology) and in a safety net hospital. Aim 1: Describe variations in safety events
across care settings and populations using family- and patient-generated safety reports (N~6,500 participants;
N~3000 FIQS Reports). This will use the real-time mobile phone tool to determine differences in family and
patient safety reports by hospital setting, medical complexity, language, health technology literacy, and patient
and family-member demographics. Aim 2: Compare FIQS reports to clinician-generated safety reports
documented in incident reports and in the medical record. This will employ mixed-methods, quantifying the
number of overlapping and unique events from each source, and using qualitative analysis to describe unique
domains covered in each source. Aim 3: Evaluate an improvement collaborative focused on incorporating
family and patient reports issues into safety efforts. The collaborative will include all participating units;
domains of focus will be medication and communication. Mixed-methods will be used to evaluate the
collaborative using the theory-driven RE-AIM implementation science framework. The proposed research is
innovative in its paradigm-shifting conceptual model of 1) patient-engaged quality improvement, 2) its use of
mobile phone technologies to gather real time data, and 3) its use of an improvement collaborative to develop
robust implementation strategies for incorporating family and patient reports into safety efforts. The contribution
of the proposed research will be a description of family and patient safety reports across multiple types of
inpatient settings in two diverse health systems; a comparison of family and patient safety reports to other
methods of detecting adverse events; and cross-setting...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9858747
- **Project number:** 1R01HD100393-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** Glenn Rosenbluth
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $720,179
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-03-01 → 2025-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9858747

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9858747, The Family Input for Quality and Safety (FIQS) Study (1R01HD100393-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9858747. Licensed CC0.

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