The Critical Illness Recovery for ChiLdrEn (CIRCLE) Program: Single-Center Multidisciplinary Model of Care, 2021-2023

Area of Science:

• Pediatric critical care medicine
• Quality improvement initiatives
• Child health outcomes

Background:

• Pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) survivors face long-term challenges.
• A need exists for structured, longitudinal support programs post-PICU discharge.
• The Critical Illness Recovery for ChiLdrEn (CIRCLE) program was developed to address these gaps.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate the CIRCLE personalized program, a novel care model.
• To assess the impact of the CIRCLE program on child and family outcomes.
• To identify areas for improvement in post-PICU care coordination.

Main Methods:

• A single-center quality improvement initiative was conducted.
• The study involved 98 families of children admitted to a 36-bed PICU.
• Longitudinal multidisciplinary support was provided from PICU admission through 1-3 months post-discharge clinic follow-up.

Main Results:

• Most responding families (17/18) reported improved hospitalization experiences with the CIRCLE program.
• 63% of children had new functional impairments at follow-up.
• 29% of survivors experienced hospital readmission within 6 months.

Conclusions:

• The CIRCLE program demonstrated high family satisfaction.
• Opportunities for enhancing follow-up processes and outcome monitoring were identified.
• Findings underscore the necessity of coordinated PICU follow-up care for pediatric critical illness survivors due to persistent functional impairments and healthcare utilization.