Implementation of Febrile Infant Management Guidelines Reduces Hospitalization

The clinical management of well-appearing febrile infants 7-60 days of age remains variable due in part to multiple criteria differentiating the risk of a serious bacterial infection. The purpose of this quality improvement study was to standardize risk stratification in the emergency department and length of stay in the inpatient unit by implementing an evidence-based clinical practice guideline (CPG).

The Model for Improvement was used to implement a CPG for the management of well-appearing febrile infants, with collaboration between pediatric emergency medicine and pediatric hospital medicine physicians. Interventions included physician education, process audit/feedback, and development of an electronic orderset. We used statistical process control charts to assess the primary aims of appropriate risk stratification and length of stay.

Over a 34-month period, 168 unique encounters (baseline n = 65, intervention n = 103) were included. There was strong adherence for appropriate risk stratification in both periods: the proportion of low-risk patients admitted inappropriately decreased from 14.8% to 10.8%. Among admitted high-risk patients, the mean length of stay decreased from 49.4 to 38.2 hours, sustained for 18 months.

CPG implementation using quality improvement methodology can increase the delivery of evidence-based care for febrile infants, leading to a reduction in length of stay for high-risk infants.