Hannah Bassett, MD

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To derive care targets and evaluate the impact of displaying them at the point of care on postoperative length of stay (LOS).STUDY DESIGN: A prospective cohort study using 2 years of historical controls within a freestanding, academic children's hospital. Patients undergoing benchmark cardiac surgery between May 4, 2014 and August 15, 2016 (preintervention) and September 6, 2016 to September 30, 2018 (postintervention) were included. The intervention consisted of displaying at the point of care targets for the timing of extubation, transfer from the intensive care unit (ICU), and hospital discharge. Family satisfaction, reintubation, and readmission rates were tracked.RESULTS: The postintervention cohort consisted of 219 consecutive patients. There was a reduction in variation for ICU (difference in SD -2.56, p < 0.01), and total LOS (difference in SD -2.84, P < .001). Patients stayed on average 0.97 fewer days (p<0.001) in the ICU (median -1.01 [IQR -2.15,-0.39], 0.7 fewer days (p<0.001) on mechanical ventilation (median -0.54 [IQR -0.77,-0.50], and 1.18 fewer days (p<0.001) for the total LOS (median -2.25 [IQR -3.69,-0.15]. Log transformed multivariable linear regression demonstrated the intervention to be associated with shorter ICU LOS (beta coefficient -0.19, SE 0.059, p<0.001), total postoperative LOS (beta coefficient -0.12, SE 0.052, p=0.02), and ventilator duration (beta coefficient -0.21, SE 0.048, p<0.001). Balancing metrics did not differ after the intervention.CONCLUSIONS: Target based care is a simple, novel intervention associated with reduced variation in LOS and absolute LOS across a diverse spectrum of complex cardiac surgeries.

View details for DOI 10.1016/j.jpeds.2020.09.017

View details for PubMedID 32920104

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Moral distress is increasingly identified as a major problem affecting healthcare professionals, but it is poorly characterized among pediatricians. Our objective was to assess the sources of moral distress in residents and pediatric hospitalist attendings and to examine the association of moral distress with reported burnout.METHODS: Cross-sectional survey from January through March 2019 of pediatric residents and hospital medicine attending physicians affiliated with four free-standing children's hospitals. Moral distress was measured using the Measure of Moral Distress for Healthcare Professionals (MMD-HP). Burnout was measured using 2 items adapted from the Maslach Burnout Inventory.RESULTS: Respondents included 288/541 eligible pediatric residents (response rate: 53%) and 118/168 pediatric hospitalists (response rate: 70%; total response rate: 57%). The mean MMD-HP composite score was 93.4 (SD=42.5). Residents reported significantly higher frequency scores (residents: M=38.5 vs. hospitalists: M=33.3; difference: 5.2, 95% CI:2.9-7.5) and composite scores (residents: M=97.6 vs. hospitalists: M=83.0; difference: 14.6, 95% CI:5.7-23.5) than hospitalists. The most frequent source of moral distress was "having excessive documentation requirements that compromise patient care," and the most intense source of moral distress was "be[ing] required to work with abusive patients/family members who are compromising quality of care." Significantly higher mean MMD-HP composite scores were observed among participants reporting that they felt burned out at least once per week (M=114.6 vs. M=82.3; difference: 32.3, 95% CI:23.5-41.2).CONCLUSIONS: Pediatric residents and hospitalists report experiencing moral distress from a variety of patient-, team-, and system-level sources, and this distress is associated with burnout.

View details for DOI 10.1016/j.acap.2020.05.017

View details for PubMedID 32492578

Abstract

High costs of hospitalization may contribute to financial difficulties for some families.To examine the prevalence of financial distress and medical financial burden in families of hospitalized children and identify factors that can predict financial difficulties.Cross-sectional survey of parents of hospitalized children at six children's hospitals between October 2017 and November 2018.The outcomes were high financial distress and medical financial burden. Multivariable logistic regression identified predictors of each outcome. The primary predictor variable was level of chronic disease (complex chronic disease, C-CD; noncomplex chronic disease, NC-CD; no chronic disease, no-CD).Of 644 invited participants, 526 (82%) were enrolled, with 125 (24%) experiencing high financial distress, and 160 (30%) reporting medical financial burden. Of those, 86 (54%) indicated their medical financial burden was caused by costs associated with their hospitalized child. Neither C-CD nor NC-CD were associated with high financial distress. Child-related medical financial burden was associated with both C-CD and NC-CD (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 4.98; 95% CI, 2.41-10.29; and AOR, 2.57; 95% CI, 1.11-5.93), compared to no-CD. Although household poverty level was associated with both measures, financial difficulties occurred in all family income brackets.Financial difficulties are common in families of hospitalized children. Low-income families and those who have children with chronic conditions are at particular risk; however, financial difficulties affect all subsets of the pediatric population. Hospitalization may be a prime opportunity to identify and engage families at risk for financial distress and medical financial burden.

View details for DOI 10.12788/jhm.3500

View details for PubMedID 33147127

Abstract

Although perforated appendicitis is associated with infectious complications, the choice of antibiotic therapy is controversial. We assess the effectiveness and safety of an intervention to reduce piperacillin and tazobactam (PT) use for pediatric acute perforated appendicitis.This is a single-center, retrospective cohort study of children18y of age who underwent primary appendectomy for perforated appendicitis between January 01, 2016 and June 30, 2019. An intervention to decrease PT use was implemented: the first phase was provider education (April 19, 2017) and the second phase was modification of electronic antibiotic orders to default to ceftriaxone and metronidazole (July 06, 2017). Preintervention and postintervention PT exposure, use of PThalf of intravenous antibiotic days, and clinical outcomes were compared.Forty children before and 109 after intervention were included and had similar baseline characteristics. PT exposure was 31 of 40 (78%) and 20 of 109 (18%) (P<0.001), and usehalf of intravenous antibiotic days was 31 of 40 (78%) and 14 of 109 (13%) (P<0.001), in the preintervention and postintervention groups, respectively. There was no significant difference in mean duration of antibiotic therapy (10.8 versus 9.8d), mean length of stay (6.2 versus 6.5d), rate of surgical site infection (10% versus 11%), or rate of 30-d readmission and emergency department visit (20% versus 20%) between the preintervention and postintervention periods, respectively.Provider education and modification of electronic antibiotic orders safely reduced the use of PT for pediatric perforated appendicitis.

View details for DOI 10.1016/j.jss.2020.11.067

View details for PubMedID 33340867

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of hospital discharge instructions (HDIs) is to facilitate safe patient transitions home, but electronic health records can generate lengthy documents filled with irrelevant information. When our institution changed electronic health records, a cumbersome electronic discharge workflow produced low-value HDI and contributed to a spike in discharge delays. Our aim was to decrease these delays while improving family and provider satisfaction with HDI.METHODS: We used quality improvement methodology to redesign the electronic discharge navigator and HDI to address the following issues: (1) difficulty preparing discharge instructions before time of discharge, (2) suboptimal formatting of HDI, (3) lack of standard templates and language within HDI, and (4) difficulties translating HDI into non-English languages. Discharge delays due to HDI were tracked before and after the launch of our new discharge workflow. Parents and providers evaluated HDI and the electronic discharge workflow, respectively, before and after our intervention. Providers audited HDI for content.RESULTS: Discharge delays due to HDI errors decreased from a mean of 3.4 to 0.5 per month after our intervention. Parents' ratings of how understandable our HDIs were improved from 2.35 to 2.74 postintervention (P = .05). Pediatric resident agreement that the electronic discharge process was easy to use increased from 9% to 67% after the intervention (P < .001).CONCLUSIONS: Through multidisciplinary collaboration we facilitated advance preparation of more standardized HDI and decreased related discharge delays from the acute care units at a large tertiary care hospital.

View details for DOI 10.1542/hpeds.2018-0251

View details for PubMedID 31243058

View details for PubMedID 30498164