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Characteristics of hospitalizations for patients who use a structured clinical care program for children with medical

Jay G Berry1, Rishi Agrawal, Dennis Z Kuo

  • 1Division of General Pediatrics, Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

The Journal of Pediatrics
|March 25, 2011
PubMed

Insights

Children in complex-care programs face long hospital stays and frequent readmissions. Reducing readmissions could lower healthcare costs for these high-need pediatric patients.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatric hospital medicine
  • Healthcare delivery systems
  • Complex chronic conditions

Background:

  • Children with multiple chronic medical conditions require specialized care coordination.
  • Existing clinical programs aim to manage complex pediatric cases.
  • Understanding hospitalization patterns is crucial for optimizing care.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To characterize hospitalizations in children utilizing complex-care programs.
  • To identify common diagnoses and reasons for admission.
  • To assess inpatient resource utilization.

Main Methods:

  • Retrospective analysis of 1083 pediatric patients.
  • Data collected from June 2006 to July 2008 across 4 children's hospitals.
  • Assessment of chronic diagnoses, technology assistance, neurologic impairment, length of stay, and readmission rates.

Main Results:

  • Patients had an average of 3.1 admissions and a 12.2-day length of stay.
  • The 30-day readmission rate was 25.4%.
  • Common characteristics included neurologic impairment (57%) and gastrostomy tubes (56%); major surgery was a primary reason for admission (47.1%).

Conclusions:

  • Structured complex-care programs manage children with significant medical needs.
  • These hospitalizations are lengthy and associated with high early readmission rates.
  • Reducing readmissions may decrease inpatient costs for this high-utilization population.
Abstract

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