Encounters for SI and SA at US children's hospitals increased steadily from 2008 to 2015 and accounted for an increasing percentage of all hospital encounters. Increases were noted across all age groups, with consistent seasonal patterns that persisted over the study period. The growing impact of pediatric mental health disorders has important implications for children's hospitals and health care delivery systems.
Acute gastroenteritis (AGE) remains a major cause of childhood morbidity and mortality in the United States. The routine use of vaccines targeting rotavirus, the most common cause of pediatric AGE, has decreased all-cause AGE emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations. 1 However, the burden of pediatric AGE remains substantial. With annual hospitalization rates of 3 to 5 per 1000 US children ,5 years of age, AGE remains among the top 10 reasons for pediatric hospitalization nationwide. 1,2 The financial burden of ED care and hospitalization alone accounts for .$350 million in costs annually. 3 Care for uncomplicated AGE is largely supportive, and guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics and other international organizations emphasize conservative management and discourage routine diagnostic testing for AGE, with or without dehydration. 4-6 Yet there continues to be wide variation in AGE management among individual providers and hospitals in the United States and abroad. 7,8 Studies in children with acute respiratory illness show similar variation in care that is associated with important outcome differences, with higher resource utilization linked to higher rates of hospitalization and longer hospital length of stay (LOS), irrespective of the severity of illness. 9,10 Whether similar associations exist between resource utilization and outcomes in children with AGE is largely unexplored. With the use of data from 34 US children' s hospitals, we sought to characterize hospital-level variation in diagnostic testing and hospitalization rates in children with AGE presenting for emergency care. We also examined associations between diagnostic testing and rates of hospitalization. METHODS Study Design and Data Source We conducted a multicenter, retrospective study in children with AGE evaluated at 1 of 34 US children' s hospitals that contribute data to the Pediatric Health Information System (PHIS) administrative database (Children' s Hospital Association, Overland Park, KS). The PHIS database contains patient demographic characteristics and billed
Background Methods of sustaining the deimplementation of overused medical practices (i.e., practices not supported by evidence) are understudied. In pediatric hospital medicine, continuous pulse oximetry monitoring of children with the common viral respiratory illness bronchiolitis is recommended only under specific circumstances. Three national guidelines discourage its use for children who are not receiving supplemental oxygen, but guideline-discordant practice (i.e., overuse) remains prevalent. A 6-hospital pilot of educational outreach with audit and feedback resulted in immediate reductions in overuse; however, the best strategies to optimize sustainment of deimplementation success are unknown. Methods The Eliminating Monitor Overuse (EMO) trial will compare two deimplementation strategies in a hybrid type III effectiveness-deimplementation trial. This longitudinal cluster-randomized design will be conducted in Pediatric Research in Inpatient Settings (PRIS) Network hospitals and will include baseline measurement, active deimplementation, and sustainment phases. After a baseline measurement period, 16–19 hospitals will be randomized to a deimplementation strategy that targets unlearning (educational outreach with audit and feedback), and the other 16–19 will be randomized to a strategy that targets unlearning and substitution (adding an EHR-integrated clinical pathway decision support tool). The primary outcome is the sustainment of deimplementation in bronchiolitis patients who are not receiving any supplemental oxygen, analyzed as a longitudinal difference-in-differences comparison of overuse rates across study arms. Secondary outcomes include equity of deimplementation and the fidelity to, and cost of, each deimplementation strategy. To understand how the deimplementation strategies work, we will test hypothesized mechanisms of routinization (clinicians developing new routines supporting practice change) and institutionalization (embedding of practice change into existing organizational systems). Discussion The EMO trial will advance the science of deimplementation by providing new insights into the processes, mechanisms, costs, and likelihood of sustained practice change using rigorously designed deimplementation strategies. The trial will also advance care for a high-incidence, costly pediatric lung disease. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov,NCT05132322. Registered on November 10, 2021.
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Bronchiolitis is a leading cause of pediatric hospitalization in the United States, resulting in significant morbidity and health care resource use. Despite American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations against obtaining chest radiographs (CXRs) for bronchiolitis, variation in care continues. Historically, clinical practice guidelines and educational campaigns have had mixed success in reducing unnecessary CXR use. Our aim was to reduce CXR use for children <2 years with a primary diagnosis of bronchiolitis, regardless of emergency department (ED) disposition or preexisting conditions, from 42.1% to <15% of encounters by March 2020. METHODS A multidisciplinary team was created at our institution in 2012 to standardize bronchiolitis care. Given success with higher reliability interventions in asthma, similar interventions affecting workflow were subsequently pursued with bronchiolitis, starting in 2017, by using quality improvement science methods. The primary outcome was the percent of bronchiolitis encounters with a CXR. The balancing measure was return visits within 72 hours to the ED. Statistical process control charts were used to monitor and analyze data obtained from an internally created dashboard. RESULTS From 2012 to 2020, our hospital had 12 120 bronchiolitis encounters. Preimplementation baseline revealed a mean of 42.1% for CXR use. Low reliability interventions, like educational campaigns, resulted in unsustained effects on CXR use. Higher reliability interventions were associated with sustained reductions to 23.3% and 18.9% over the last 4 years. There was no change in ED return visits. CONCLUSIONS High-reliability workflow redesign was more effective in translating American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations into sustained practice than educational campaigns.
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