Visualizing Patterns in Pediatric and Adult Hospital Care

We aimed to design a graphical tool for understanding and effectively communicating the complex differences between pediatric and adult hospital care systems.

We analyzed the most recent hospital administrative data sets for inpatient admission and emergency department visits from 7 US states (2014: Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York; 2011: California). Probabilities of care completion (Pcc) were calculated for pediatric (<18 years old) and adult conditions in all acute-care hospitals in each state. Using the Pcc, we constructed interactive heatmap visualizations for direct comparison of pediatric and adult hospital care systems.

On average, across the 7 states, 70.6% of all hospitals had Pcc >0.5 for more than half of all adult conditions, whereas <14.9% of hospitals had Pcc >0.1 for half of pediatric conditions. Visualizations revealed wide variation among states with clearly apparent institutional dependencies and condition-specific gaps (full interactive versions are available at https://goo.gl/5t8vAw).

The functional disparities between pediatric and adult hospital care systems are substantial, and condition-specific differences should be considered in reimbursement strategies, disaster planning, network adequacy determinations, and public health planning.