Should pediatric emergency physicians be decentralized in the medical community?

Pediatric emergency physicians (PEPs) are well established as primary emergency department (ED) providers in dedicated pediatric centers and university settings. However, the optimum role of these subspecialists is less well defined in the community hospital environment. This study examined the impact on the ED care of children after the introduction of 10 PEPs into a simulated medical community.

A computer-generated community was created, containing 10 community hospitals treating 250,000 pediatric ED patients. Children requiring ED treatment received their care at the closest ED to their location. Ten PEPs were introduced into the community, and their impact on patient care was examined under 2 different models. In a restrictive model, the PEPs established 2 full-time pediatric EDs within the 2 busiest hospitals, whereas, in a distributive model, the PEPs were distributed throughout the 8 busiest hospitals. In the 8-hospital model, the PEPs provided direct patient care along with the general emergency physicians in that facility and also provided educational, administrative, and performance improvement support for the department. In the restrictive model, the PEPs impacted the care of 100% of the children presenting for treatment at their 2 practice sites. In the distributive model, impact included the direct patient care by the PEP but also included changes produced in the care provided by the general emergency physicians at the site. Three different levels of impact were considered for the presence of the PEPs: a low-impact version in which the PEPs' presence only impacted 25% of the children at that site, a moderate-impact version in which the impact affected 50% of the children, and a high-impact version in which the impact affected 75% of the children. A secondary analysis was performed to account for the possibility of patients self-diverting from the closest ED to 1 of the pediatric EDs in the restrictive model.

In the restrictive model, the addition of 10 PEPs to the community would impact 27% of the pediatric ED care in the community. In the 3 distributive models, the PEPs would impact 23% of pediatric care in the low-impact version, 46% of pediatric care in the moderate-impact version, and 69% of pediatric care in the high-impact version. If self-diversion were to occur in the restrictive model, then 19% of the patients would need to bypass the closest ED and travel to the pediatric ED to match the same effect on patient care produced in the moderate-impact version of the distributive model and 46% would need to divert to match the effect of the high-impact version.

The greatest impact of PEPs on an ED population of children is produced when the PEPs distribute themselves throughout a medical community rather than create individual pediatric EDs in a small number of hospitals.