Pediatric Emergency Care Coordinator Presence and Pediatric Care Quality Measures

Higher pediatric readiness has been associated with improved quality and outcomes of care for children. Pediatric emergency care coordinators (PECCs) are a component of pediatric readiness, but the specific association between PECCs and quality-of-care measures is undefined.

To examine the association between PECC presence and emergency department (ED) performance as reflected by quality-of-care measures.

This cohort study of ED patients 18 years or younger used data across 8 states, combining the 2019 National Emergency Department Inventory-USA, 2019 State Emergency Department Database and State Inpatient Database, 2020 Supplemental National Emergency Department Inventory PECC Survey, and the 2021 National Pediatric Readiness Project Survey. This analysis was conducted from February 15, 2023, to July 9, 2024.

Presence of a PECC.

Hospitals were stratified by presence of pediatric resources (ie, pediatric intensive care and inpatient units), with exclusion of children's hospitals and comparison between pediatric-resourced and non-pediatric-resourced (unable to admit children, no pediatric intensive care unit) hospitals. The 7 measures chosen were length of stay longer than 1 day for discharged patients, left against medical advice or without completing treatment, death in the ED, return visits within 3 days, return visits with admission within 3 days, use of chest radiography in patients with asthma, and use of head computed tomography for patients with head trauma. For each stratum, multilevel generalized linear models were constructed to examine the association between PECC presence and process and utilization measure performance, adjusted for patient-level factors (age, sex, race and ethnicity, insurance, and complex chronic conditions) and ED-level factors (visit volume, patient census, and case mix [race and ethnicity, insurance, and complex chronic conditions]).

There were 4 645 937 visits from pediatric patients (mean [SD] age, 7.8 [6.1] years; 51% male and 49% female) to 858 hospitals, including 849 non-freestanding pediatric hospitals, in the analytic sample. Highly resourced pediatric centers were most likely to have a PECC (52 of 59 [88%]) compared with moderately resourced (54 of 156 [35%]) and non-pediatric-resourced hospitals (66 of 519 [13%]). Among the 599 non-pediatric-resourced hospitals, PECC presence was associated with decreased rates of computed tomography in head trauma (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 0.76; 95% CI, 0.66-0.87); in the pediatric-resourced hospitals, the AOR was 0.85 (95% CI, 0.73-1.00). For patients with asthma, PECC was associated with decreased chest radiography rates among pediatric-resourced hospitals (AOR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.66-0.91) but not non-pediatric-resourced hospitals (AOR, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.78-1.12).

The presence of a PECC was not consistently associated with quality-of-care measures. The presence of a PECC was variably associated with performance on imaging utilization measures, suggesting a potential influence of PECCs on clinical care processes. Additional studies are needed to understand the role of PECCs in driving adherence to clinical care guidelines and improving quality and patient outcomes.