Adverse Drug Events (ADEs) have been defined by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) as "an injury, large or small, caused by the use of a drug."  The use of “triggers,” or clues, to identify ADEs has been shown to be an effective method for measuring the overall level of harm from medication errors among adult hospital populations.  As part of the IHI Saving 100K Lives Campaign, twelve U.S. children’s hospitals, convened through the Child Health Corporation of America (CHCA), adapted IHI's adult ADE trigger tool for pediatric patients.

The National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality (NICHQ), a partner in IHI's Saving 5 Million Lives Campaign, has supported the organization of The Pediatric Affinity Group, a partnership of four organizations, working with leading U.S. hospitals, to create tools to provide adapt IHI's How-to-Guides for patient safety to children's health care. The NICHQ web site features this guide to help hospitals prevent medication errors in children.  The pediatric ADE How-to-Guide includes the Pediatric Adverse Drug Event Trigger Toolkit developed by CHCA, along with example standard order sets, a sample script to standardize the collection of pediatric patient allergy information, and "20 tips to help prevent medical errors in children."