Guideline Adoption for Community-Acquired Pneumonia in the Outpatient Setting.

BACKGROUND: The Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society and Infectious Diseases Society of America national childhood community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) guideline encouraged the standard evaluation and treatment of children who were managed as outpatients. Our objectives were to (1) increase adherence to guideline-recommended diagnostics and antibiotic treatment of CAP at 5 pediatric primary care practices (PPCPs) by using quality-improvement methods and (2) evaluate the association between guideline adherence and unscheduled follow-up visits. METHODS: Immunocompetent children >3 months of age with no complex chronic conditions and who were diagnosed with CAP were eligible for inclusion in this stepped-wedge study. Interventions were focused on education, knowledge of colleagues' prescribing practices, and feedback sessions. Statistical process control charts were used to assess changes in recommendations and antibiotic treatment. Unscheduled follow-up visits were compared across time by using generalized estimating equations that were clustered by PPCP. RESULTS: CAP was diagnosed in 1906 children. Guideline recommended therapy and pulse oximetry use increased from a mean baseline of 24.9% to a mean of 68.0% and from 4.3% to 85.0%, respectively, over the study period. Among children >5 years of age, but not among those who were younger, the receipt of guideline recommended antibiotics, as compared with nonguideline therapy, was associated with the increased likelihood of unscheduled follow-up (adjusted odds ratio, 2.12; 95% confidence interval: 1.31-3.43). Chest radiographs and complete blood cell counts were rarely performed at baseline. CONCLUSIONS: Recommendations for limited use of chest radiographs and complete blood cell counts and standardized antibiotic therapy in children is supported at PPCPs. However, the guideline may need to include macrolide monotherapy as appropriate antibiotic therapy for older children.

Implementation of a Communication Bundle for High-Risk Patients.

BACKGROUND: Interventions that facilitate early identification and management of hospitalized pediatric patients who are at risk for deterioration are associated with decreased mortality. In our large pediatric hospital with a history of success in decreasing unrecognized deterioration, patients at higher risk of deterioration are termed "watchers." Because communication errors often contribute to unrecognized deterioration, clear and timely communication of watcher status to all team members and contingency planning was desired. OBJECTIVES: Increase the percentage of eligible watchers with a complete communication, teamwork, and planning bundle within 2 hours of identification from 28% to 80%. METHODS: Watchers admitted to Hospital Medicine on 2 targeted units were eligible. Stakeholders were educated to facilitate ownership. Daily data analysis enabled real-time failure identification. Automated physician notification provided reminders for timely communication. RESULTS: The percentage of watchers with a complete situation awareness bundle within 2 hours increased from 28% to 81% and was sustained for more than 2 years. There was no change in rates of rapid response team calls or ICU transfers on our intervention units, but these both increased throughout the hospital. Education facilitated modest improvement, with marked improvements and sustainment through use of technology. CONCLUSIONS: A novel bundle that included contingency planning and communication expectations was created to improve situation awareness for watchers. Multidisciplinary engagement and use of automated technology facilitated by an electronic health record helped implement and sustain bundle adherence.

Geographic Variation in Hospitalization for Lower Respiratory Tract Infections Across One County.

IMPORTANCE: Bronchiolitis and pneumonia are leading causes of pediatric hospitalizations. Identifying geographic patterns in hospitalization rates across small geographic areas could be particularly relevant to targeted patient-level and population-level health care. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether lower respiratory tract infection hospitalization rates varied geographically across a single county and whether such variability was associated with socioeconomic conditions. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Cross-sectional, population-based study of children hospitalized at one institution for lower respiratory tract infections between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2013. The setting was Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, a large, academic, stand-alone pediatric facility located in Hamilton County, Ohio. During the study period, 99.6% of in-county children hospitalized for lower respiratory tract infections were admitted to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Participants were children younger than 2 years who were hospitalized with bronchiolitis and children younger than 18 years who were hospitalized with pneumonia. Patients were identified using discharge diagnosis codes and then geocoded to their home census tract. EXPOSURES: Primary exposures, linked to each geocoded patient, included census tract-level socioeconomic measures obtained from the 2008 to 2012 American Community Survey (eg, adult educational attainment, unemployment, and poverty). Patient-level variables examined included demographics, presence of a complex chronic condition, length of stay, and cost. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: We calculated bronchiolitis and pneumonia hospitalization rates for Hamilton County and for each of 222 in-county census tracts. Associations between hospitalization rate quintiles and underlying socioeconomic conditions were assessed using the Kruskal-Wallis test. Geographic clustering was assessed using the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic. RESULTS: There were 1495 bronchiolitis hospitalizations and 1231 pneumonia hospitalizations during the study period. The county rates were 17.5 (range across census tracts, 0-71.4) hospitalizations per 1000 children per year for bronchiolitis and 1.6 (range across census tracts, 0-4.3) hospitalizations per 1000 children per year for pneumonia. There was significant variation in the median hospitalization rates by census tract quintile for bronchiolitis (32.8, 20.8, 14.0, 10.4, and 5.1 per 1000) and for pneumonia (3.3, 2.1, 1.4, 0.9, and 0.3 per 1000). There were also significant, graded differences in socioeconomic measures by hospitalization rate quintile. Hot spots were localized to inner-city, impoverished neighborhoods. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Bronchiolitis and pneumonia hospitalization rates varied considerably in ways that were related to underlying socioeconomic conditions. Clinical and public health interventions, targeted accordingly, could improve patient-level and population-level management of acute conditions at a reduced cost.

Administrative data misclassifies and fails to identify nephrotoxin-associated acute kidney injury in hospitalized children.

OBJECTIVES: Nephrotoxin exposure is a common cause of acute kidney injury (AKI) in hospitalized children. AKI detection relies on regular serum creatinine (SCr) screening among exposed patients. We sought to determine how well administrative data identify hospitalized noncritically ill children with nephrotoxic medication-associated AKI in the contexts of incomplete and complete screening. METHODS: We conducted a single-center retrospective cohort study among noncritically ill hospitalized children. We compared administrative data sensitivity to that among a separate cohort for whom adequate screening was defined as daily SCr measurement. For the original cohort, nephrotoxin exposure was defined as exposure to ≥3 nephrotoxins at once or ≥3 days of aminoglycoside therapy. AKI was defined by the change in SCr (pediatric-modified Risk Injury Failure Loss End-Stage Renal Disease [pRIFLE] criteria) or discharge code. Adequate SCr screening was defined as 2 measurements obtained ≤96 hours apart. Administrative data and laboratory values were merged to compare AKI by discharge code and pRIFLE criteria. RESULTS: 747 of 1472 (50.7%) nephrotoxin-exposed patients were adequately screened; 82 (11.0%) had AKI by pRIFLE criteria, 52 (7.0%) by discharge code. Sensitivity of nephrotoxin-associated AKI diagnosis by discharge code compared with pRIFLE criteria was 23.2% (95% confidence interval = 14.0-32.3). In the comparison cohort, 70 (26.8%) patients had AKI by pRIFLE criteria and 26 (10.0%) by discharge code; sensitivity was 21.4% (95% confidence interval = 11.8%-31.0%). CONCLUSIONS: pRIFLE criteria identified more patients than were identified by discharge code. Identifying patients with nephrotoxin-associated AKI by discharge code, even in the presence of complete AKI detection, underrepresents the true incidence of nephrotoxin-associated AKI in hospitalized children.