Child Health Needs and the Pediatric Hospital Medicine Workforce: 2020-2040.

Pediatric hospital medicine (PHM) established a new model of care for hospitalized children in the United States nearly 3 decades ago. In that time, the field experienced rapid growth while distinguishing itself through contributions to medical education, quality improvement, clinical and health services research, patient safety, and health system leadership. Hospital systems have also invested in using in-house pediatricians to manage various inpatient care settings as patient acuity has accelerated. National PHM leaders advocated for board certification in 2014, and the first certification examination was administered by the American Board of Pediatrics in 2019. In this article, we describe the development of the subspecialty, including evolving definitions and responsibilities of pediatric hospitalists. Although PHM was not included in the model forecasting future pediatric subspecialties through 2040 in this supplement because of limited historical data, in this article, we consider the current and future states of the workforce in relation to children's health needs. Expected challenges include potential alterations to residency curriculum, changes in the number of fellowship positions, expanding professional roles, concerns related to job sustainability and burnout, and closures of pediatric inpatient units in community hospitals. We simultaneously forecast growing demand in the PHM workforce arising from the increasing prevalence of children with medical complexity and increasing comanagement of hospitalized children between pediatric hospitalists and other subspecialists. As such, our forecast incorporates a degree of uncertainty and points to the need for ongoing investments in future research to monitor and evaluate the size, scope, and needs of pediatric hospitalists and the PHM workforce.

Predictors of Pediatric Frequent Emergency Department Use Among 7.6 million Pediatric Patients in New York.

OBJECTIVE: This study examines the characteristics and factors associated with frequent emergency department (ED) utilization among the pediatric population. METHODS: We conducted a pooled cross-sectional secondary analysis using the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project State Emergency and Inpatient Databases on ED visits to all hospitals in New York from 2011 to 2016 by patients aged 0 to 21. We used multivariable logistic and negative binomial regressions to investigate the predictors of multiple ED visits in the pediatric population. RESULTS: Overall, our study included 7.6 million pediatric patients who accounted for more than 12 million ED visits. Of those, 6.2% of patients were frequent ED users (≥4 visits/year), accounting for 20.8% of all ED visits (5.4 ED visits/year on average). The strongest predictors of frequent ED use were having at least one ED visit related to asthma (aOR = 8.37 [95% CI: 6.34-11.04]), mental health disorders (aOR = 9.67 [95% CI: 8.60-10.89]), or multiple comorbidities compared to none. Larger shares of ED visits for not-emergent conditions were also associated with frequent ED use (aOR = 6.63 [95% CI = 5.08-8.65]). Being covered by Medicaid compared to private (aOR = 0.45 [95% CI: 0.42-0.47]) or no insurance (aOR = 0.41 [95% CI: 0.38-0.44]) were further associated with frequent ED use. The results from the negative binomial regression yielded consistent findings. CONCLUSIONS: Pediatric patients who exhibit increased ED use are more medically complex and have increased healthcare needs that are inextricably tied to social determinants of health. Better integrated health systems should emphasize connecting vulnerable patients to appropriate social and primary care services outside of emergency settings.

Association of Models of Care for Kawasaki Disease With Utilization and Cardiac Outcomes.

OBJECTIVES: Describe the prevalence of different care models for children with Kawasaki disease (KD) and evaluate utilization and cardiac outcomes by care model. METHODS: Multicenter, retrospective cohort study of children aged 0 to 18 hospitalized with KD in US children's hospitals from 2017 to 2018. We classified hospital model of care via survey: hospitalist primary service with as-needed consultation (Model 1), hospitalist primary service with automatic consultation (Model 2), or subspecialist primary service (Model 3). Additional data sources included administrative data from the Pediatric Health Information System database supplemented by a 6-site chart review. Utilization outcomes included laboratory, medication and imaging usage, length of stay, and readmission rates. We measured the frequency of coronary artery aneurysms (CAAs) in the full cohort and new CAAs within 12 weeks in the 6-site chart review subset. RESULTS: We included 2080 children from 44 children's hospitals; 21 hospitals (48%) identified as Model 1, 19 (43%) as Model 2, and 4 (9%) as Model 3. Model 1 institutions obtained more laboratory tests and had lower overall costs (P < .001), whereas echocardiogram (P < .001) and immune modulator use (P < .001) were more frequent in Model 3. Secondary outcomes, including length of stay, readmission rates, emergency department revisits, CAA frequency, receipt of anticoagulation, and postdischarge CAA development, did not differ among models. CONCLUSIONS: Modest cost and utilization differences exist among different models of care for KD without significant differences in outcomes. Further research is needed to investigate primary service and consultation practices for KD to optimize health care value and outcomes.

2021 Update on Pediatric Overuse.

This update on pediatric medical overuse identifies and provides concise summaries of 10 impactful articles related to pediatric medical overuse from the years 2019 to 2020.

Preventing Home Medication Administration Errors.

Medication administration errors that take place in the home are common, especially when liquid preparations are used and complex medication schedules with multiple medications are involved; children with chronic conditions are disproportionately affected. Parents and other caregivers with low health literacy and/or limited English proficiency are at higher risk for making errors in administering medications to children in their care. Recommended strategies to reduce home medication errors relate to provider prescribing practices; health literacy-informed verbal counseling strategies (eg, teachback and showback) and written patient education materials (eg, pictographic information) for patients and/or caregivers across settings (inpatient, outpatient, emergency care, pharmacy); dosing-tool provision for liquid medication measurement; review of medication lists with patients and/or caregivers (medication reconciliation) that includes prescription and over-the-counter medications, as well as vitamins and supplements; leveraging the medical home; engaging adolescents and their adult caregivers; training of providers; safe disposal of medications; regulations related to medication dosing tools, labeling, packaging, and informational materials; use of electronic health records and other technologies; and research to identify novel ways to support safe home medication administration.

2019 Update on Pediatric Medical Overuse: A Systematic Review.

Importance: Medical overuse is common in pediatrics and may lead to unnecessary care, resource use, and patient harm. Timely scrutiny of established and emerging practices can identify areas of overuse and empower clinicians to reconsider the balance of harms and benefits of the medical care that they provide. A literature review was conducted to identify the most important areas of pediatric medical overuse in 2018. Observations: Consistent with prior methods, a structured MEDLINE search and manual table of contents review of selected pediatric journals for the 2018 literature was conducted identifying articles pertaining to pediatric medical overuse. The structured MEDLINE search consisted of a PubMed search for articles with the Medical Subject Headings term health services misuse or medical overuse or article titles containing the term unnecessary, inappropriate, overutilization, or overuse. Articles containing the term overuse injury or overuse injuries were excluded, along with articles not published in English and those not constituting original research. The same search was performed using Embase with the additional Emtree term unnecessary procedure. Each article was evaluated by 3 independent raters for quality of methods, magnitude of potential harm, and number of patients potentially harmed. Ten articles were identified based on scores and appraisal of overall potential harm. This year's review identified both established and emerging practices that may warrant deimplementation. Examples of such established practices include antibiotic prophylaxis for urinary tract infections, routine opioid prescriptions, prolonged antibiotic courses for latent tuberculosis, and routine intensive care admission and pharmacologic therapy for neonatal abstinence syndrome. Emerging practices that merit greater inspection and discouragement of widespread adoption include postdischarge nurse-led home visits, probiotics for gastroenteritis, and intensive cardiac screening programs for athletes. Conclusions and Relevance: This year's review highlights established and emerging practices that represent medical overuse in the pediatric setting. Deimplementation of disproven practices and careful examination of emerging practices are imperative to prevent unnecessary resource use and patient harm.

A Framework for Evaluation of the Higher-Risk Infant After a Brief Resolved Unexplained Event.

In 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics published a clinical practice guideline that more specifically defined apparent life-threatening events as brief resolved unexplained events (BRUEs) and provided evidence-based recommendations for the evaluation of infants who meet lower-risk criteria for a subsequent event or serious underlying disorder. The clinical practice guideline did not provide recommendations for infants meeting higher-risk criteria, an important and common population of patients. Therefore, we propose a tiered approach for clinical evaluation and management of higher-risk infants who have experienced a BRUE. Because of a vast array of potential causes, the initial evaluation prioritizes the diagnosis of time-sensitive conditions for which delayed diagnosis or treatment could impact outcomes, such as child maltreatment, feeding problems, cardiac arrhythmias, infections, and congenital abnormalities. The secondary evaluation addresses problems that are less sensitive to delayed diagnosis or treatment, such as dysphagia, intermittent partial airway obstruction, and epilepsy. The authors recommend a tailored, family-centered, multidisciplinary approach to evaluation and management of all higher-risk infants with a BRUE, whether accomplished during hospital admission or through coordinated outpatient care. The proposed framework was developed by using available evidence and expert consensus.

Achievable Benchmarks of Care for Pediatric Readmissions.

BACKGROUND: Most inpatient care for children occurs outside tertiary children's hospitals, yet these facilities often dictate quality metrics. Our objective was to calculate the mean readmission rates and the Achievable Benchmarks of Care (ABCs) for pediatric diagnoses by different hospital types: metropolitan teaching, metropolitan nonteaching, and nonmetropolitan hospitals. METHODS: We used a cross-sectional retrospective study of 30-day, all-cause, same-hospital readmission of patients less than 18 years old using the 2014 Healthcare Utilization Project National Readmission Database. For each hospital type, we calculated the mean readmission rates and corresponding ABCs for the 17 most common readmission diagnoses. We define outlier as any hospital whose readmission rate fell outside the 95% CI for an ABC within their hospital type. RESULTS: We analyzed 690,949 discharges at 525 metropolitan teaching hospitals (550,039 discharges), 552 metropolitan nonteaching hospitals (97,207 discharges), and 587 nonmetropolitan hospitals (43,703 discharges). Variation in readmission rates existed among hospital types; however, sickle cell disease (SCD) had the highest readmission rate and ABC across all hospital types: metropolitan teaching hospitals 15.7% (ABC 7.0%), metropolitan nonteaching 14.7% (ABC 2.6%), and nonmetropolitan 12.8% (ABC not calculated). For diagnoses in which ABCs were available, outliers were prominent in bipolar disorders, major depressive disorders, and SCD. CONCLUSIONS: ABCs based on hospital type may serve as a better metric to explain case-mix variation among different hospital types in pediatric inpatient care. The mean rates and ABCs for SCD and mental health disorders were much higher and with more outlier hospitals, which indicate high-value targets for quality improvement.

2018 Update on Pediatric Medical Overuse: A Review.

Importance: Efforts to combat medical overuse have gained traction in recent years, but success has been intermittent and shortcomings have been recognized. A commitment to a strong evidence base is needed to more broadly engage clinicians and reduce overuse. Observations: A structured MEDLINE search and a manual review of tables of contents from selected high-impact journals was performed to identify original research published in 2017 relevant to pediatric overuse. Articles were scored from low to high for 3 categories: quality of methods, magnitude of potential harm, and number of patients potentially harmed. The top-scoring articles presented in this review highlight examples of safe reductions in treatment intensity, including in the setting of cancer, appendicitis, acute respiratory tract infection, and elective anesthesia. This year's articles also provide cautionary examples of rational interventions adopted without a full understanding of potential harms, including pharmacologic migraine therapies, docosahexaenoic acid supplementation for preterm neonates, tight glycemic control for individuals with critically illness, and prophylactic antibiotics for children with vesicoureteral reflux. Conclusions and Relevance: The articles represent high-quality, original research from 2017 that may help mitigate overuse. These works should be fundamental to the maturation of the pediatric overuse field.

2017 Update on Pediatric Medical Overuse: A Review.

Importance: Medical overuse has historically focused on adult health care, but interest in how children are affected by medical overuse is increasing. This review examines important research articles published in 2016 that address pediatric overuse. Observations: A structured search of PubMed and a manual review of the tables of contents of 10 journals identified 169 articles related to pediatric overuse published in 2016, from which 8 were selected based on the quality of methods and potential harm to patients in terms of prevalence and magnitude. Articles were categorized by overtreatment, overmedicalization, and overdiagnosis. Findings included evidence of overtreatment with commercial rehydration solution, antidepressants, and parenteral nutrition; overmedicalization with planned early deliveries, immobilization of ankle injuries, and use of hydrolyzed infant formula; and evidence of overdiagnosis of hypoxemia among children recovering from bronchiolitis. Conclusions and Relevance: The articles were of high quality, with most based on randomized clinical trials. The potential harms associated with pediatric overuse were significant, including increased risk of infection, developmental disability, and suicidality.

Choosing Wisely Campaign: Report Card and Achievable Benchmarks of Care for Children's Hospitals.

OBJECTIVES: In 2013, the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) released 5 pediatric recommendations for the Choosing Wisely Campaign (CWC). Our goals were to develop a report card on the basis of those recommendations, calculate achievable benchmarks of care (ABCs), and analyze performance among hospitals participating in the Pediatric Health Information System. METHODS: Children hospitalized between January 2013 and September 2015 from 32 Pediatric Health Information System hospitals were studied. The quality metrics in the report card included the use of chest radiograph (CXR) in asthma and bronchiolitis, bronchodilators in bronchiolitis, systemic corticosteroids in lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI), and acid suppression therapy in gastroesophageal reflux (GER). ABCs were calculated for each metric. RESULTS: Calculated ABCs were 22.3% of patients with asthma and 19.8% of patients with bronchiolitis having a CXR, 17.9% of patients with bronchiolitis receiving bronchodilators, 5.5% of patients with LRTIs treated with systemic corticosteroids, and 32.2% of patients with GER treated with acid suppressors. We found variation among hospitals in the use of CXR in asthma (median: 34.7%, interquartile range [IQR]: 28.5%-45.9%), CXR in bronchiolitis (median: 34.4%, IQR: 27.9%-49%), bronchodilators in bronchiolitis (median: 55.4%, IQR: 32.3%-64.9%), and acid suppressors in GER (median: 59.4%, IQR: 49.9%-71.2%). Less variation was noted in the use of systemic corticosteroids in LRTIs (median: 13.5%, IQR: 11.1%-17.9%). CONCLUSIONS: A novel report card was developed on the basis of the SHM-CWC pediatric recommendations, including ABCs. We found variance in practices among institutions and gaps between hospital performances and ABCs. These findings represent a roadmap for improvement.

Update on Pediatric Overuse.

As concerns over health care-related harms and costs continue to mount, efforts to identify and combat medical overuse are needed. Although much of the recent attention has focused on health care for adults, children are also harmed by overuse. Using a structured PubMed search and manual tables of contents review, we identified important articles on pediatric overuse published in 2015. These articles were evaluated according to the quality of the methods, the magnitude of clinical effect, and the number of patients potentially affected and were categorized into overdiagnosis, overtreatment, and overutilization. Overdiagnosis: Findings included evidence for overdiagnosis of hypoxemia in children with bronchiolitis and skull fractures in children suffering minor head injuries. Overtreatment: Findings included evidence that up to 85% of hospitalized children with radiographic pneumonia may not have a bacterial etiology; many children are receiving prolonged intravenous antibiotic therapy for osteomyelitis although oral therapy is equally effective; antidepressant medication for adolescents and nebulized hypertonic saline for bronchiolitis appear to be ineffective; and thresholds for treatment of hyperbilirubinemia may be too low. Overutilization: Findings suggested that the frequency of head circumference screening could be relaxed; large reductions in abdominal computed tomography testing for appendicitis appear to have been safe and effective; and overreliance on C-reactive protein levels in neonatal early onset sepsis appears to extend hospital length-of-stay.