Acute Hospital Outcomes for Renal Transplantation in Patients With Moderate or Severe Congenital Heart Disease.

Children and adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) are increasingly recognized to be at risk for acute and chronic renal injury. Some of these may progress to the need for renal transplantation. We hypothesized that patients with underlying moderate or severe CHD who undergo renal transplantation will have worse acute hospital outcomes. Using a national administrative database, we queried for admissions aged 0 to 50 years with moderate or severe CHD and renal transplantation and compared these to admissions without CHD. There were 56 admissions for renal transplantation in the CHD group (0.04%) and 26,285 admissions in the group without CHD (0.21%, p<0.001). The CHD group were younger, had a higher proportion of Whites, longer length of stay, higher complication rates, higher in-hospital mortality, and higher costs. In conclusion, although renal transplantation is still relatively uncommon in the CHD population, there is an increasing recognition of severe chronic renal disease in the setting of CHD, making it important to understand the potential implications of these findings.

Worse Hospital Outcomes for Children and Adults with COVID-19 and Congenital Heart Disease.

The aim of the current study is to investigate hospitalization outcomes of COVID-19 positive children and adults with moderate or severe congenital heart disease to children and adults without congenital heart disease. Retrospective review using the Vizient Clinical Data Base for admissions of patients with an ICD-10 code for COVID-19 from April 2020 to March 2021. Admissions with COVID-19 and with and without moderate or severe congenital heart disease (CHD) were stratified into pediatric (< 18 years) and adult (≥ 18 years) and hospital outcomes were compared. There were 9478 pediatric COVID-19 admissions, 160 (1.7%) with CHD, and 658,230 adult COVID-19 admissions, 389 (0.06%) with CHD. Pediatric admissions with COVID-19 and CHD were younger (1 vs 11 years), had longer length of stay (22 vs 6 days), higher complication rates (6.9 vs 1.1%), higher mortality rates (3.8, 0.8%), and higher costs ($54,619 vs 10,731; p < 0.001 for all). Adult admissions with COVID-19 and CHD were younger (53 vs 64 years, p < 0.001), had longer length of stay (12 vs 9 days, p < 0.001), higher complication rates (8 vs 4.8%, p = 0.003), and higher costs ($23,551 vs 13,311, p < 0.001). This appears to be the first study to report the increased hospital morbidities and costs for patients with CHD affected by COVID-19. Our hope is that these findings will help counsel patients moving forward during the pandemic.

The impact of interprofessional perspective-taking on moral distress in the pediatric intensive care unit.

Moral distress arises when constraints outside of healthcare professionals' control prohibit them from acting according to the ethically sound course of action. It can be triggered by poor communication and different perspectives between professionals. We examined whether and how taking the perspective of the other profession reduces moral distress among pediatric intensive care nurses and physicians. Using elements of a previously published scale, we created a Vignette-based Moral Distress Rating Scale (V-MDRS). Study participants from three sites included 105 nurses and 34 physicians who read a patient vignette with their own profession's perspective, completed the V-MDRS, then received the other profession's perspective and completed the V-MDRS again. We conducted semi-structured interviews with nine nurses and nine physicians who completed the V-MDRS to explore how interprofessional perspective-taking impacts moral distress. Nurses experienced higher baseline moral distress than physicians (mean ± standard deviation 31.1 ± 6.9 vs 26.4 ± 5, P < .001), and at two study sites nurses' moral distress declined after reading the physician's perspective. Findings from interviews suggest that physicians were already sensitized to nurses' perspective and that perspective-taking may be particularly beneficial to cohesive teams with strong relationships. Thus, encouraging interprofessional perspective-taking may mitigate moral distress in healthcare professionals.

Increased length of stay and hospital charges in adolescents with type 1 diabetes and psychiatric illness.

OBJECTIVES: Type I diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is one of the most common chronic diseases of childhood. Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) in this population contributes to significant healthcare utilization, including emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and ICU care. Comorbid psychiatric illnesses (CPI) are additional risks for increased healthcare utilization. While CPI increased risk for DKA hospitalization and readmission, there are no data evaluating the relationship between CPI and hospital outcomes. We hypothesized that adolescents with T1DM and CPI admitted for DKA have increased length of stay (LOS) and higher charges compared to those without CPI. METHODS: Retrospective review of 2000-2012 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project's (HCUP) Kids' Inpatient Databases (KID). Patients 10-21 years old admitted with ICD-9 codes for DKA or severe diabetes (250.1-250.33) with and without ICD-9 codes for depression (296-296.99, 311) and anxiety (300-300.9). Comparisons of LOS, mortality, and charges between groups (No CPI, Depression and Anxiety) were made with one way ANOVA with Bonferroni correction, independent samples Kruskal-Wallis test with Bonferroni correction and χ2. RESULTS: There were 79,673 admissions during the study period: 68,573 (86%) No CPI, 8,590 (10.7%) Depression and 12,510 (15.7%) Anxiety. Female patients comprised 58.2% (n=46,343) of total admissions, 66% of the Depression group, and 71% of the Anxiety group. Patients with depression or anxiety were older and had longer LOS and higher mean charges (p<0.001 for both). CONCLUSION: Comorbid depression or anxiety are associated with significantly longer LOS and higher charges in adolescents with T1DM hospitalized for DKA. This study adds to the prior findings of worse outcomes for patients with both T1DM and CPI, emphasizing the importance of identifying and treating these comorbid conditions.

Greater length of stay and hospital charges for severe asthma in children with depression or anxiety.

RATIONALE: Asthma is one of the most common chronic disorders of childhood and is associated with significant healthcare utilization and costs. Comorbid psychiatric illnesses, specifically depression and anxiety, are more prevalent in patients with asthma and associated with worse asthma control, more emergency department visits, and increased hospitalization rates. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to compare hospital outcomes and charges for children with severe asthma with and without comorbid depression and anxiety, hypothesizing that those with depression and anxiety would have longer hospitalizations and higher charges. METHODS: Retrospective review of the 2000-2012 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project's Kids' Inpatient Databases for admissions of patients aged 10-21 years with an ICD-9 code severe asthma (status asthmaticus or any asthma diagnosis with a procedure code for endotracheal intubation). Depression and Anxiety subgroups were created based on ICD-9 codes. Data collected included demographics, hospital outcomes and charges and comparisons made between groups. RESULTS: There were 52,485 admissions for severe asthma: 45,094 (86%) with No Comorbid Psychiatric Illnesses, 1284 (2.4%) with depression, and 1297 (2.5%) with anxiety. Patients with depression or anxiety were older, had longer hospitalizations, and higher hospital charges (p < .001 for all). CONCLUSIONS: Comorbid depression or anxiety is associated with significantly longer hospitalizations and higher charges for children with severe asthma. These findings add to prior reports of worse outcomes for children with asthma and comorbid depression or anxiety and suggest that improved screening for and management of these conditions in children with asthma could improve hospital outcomes and reduce costs.

E-ASSESS: Creating an EPA Assessment Tool for Structured Simulated Emergency Scenarios.

BACKGROUND: The entrustable professional activity (EPA) assessment framework allows supervisors to assign entrustment levels to physician trainees for specific activities. Limited opportunity for direct observation of trainees hampers entrustment decisions, in particular for infrequently performed activities. Simulation allows for direct observation, so tools to assess performance of EPAs in simulation could potentially provide additional data to complement clinical assessments. OBJECTIVE: We developed and collected validity evidence for a simulation-based tool grounded in the EPA framework. METHODS: We developed E-ASSESS (EPA Assessment for Structured Simulated Emergency ScenarioS) to assess performance in 2 EPAs among pediatric residents participating in simulation-based team training in 2017-2018. We collected validity data, applying Messick's unitary view. Three raters used E-ASSESS to assign entrustment levels based on performance in simulation. We compared those ratings to entrustment levels assigned by clinical supervisors (different from the study raters) for the same residents on a separate tool designed for clinical practice. We calculated intraclass correlation (ICC) for each tool and Pearson correlation coefficients to compare ratings between tools. RESULTS: Twenty-eight residents participated in the study. The ICC between the 3 raters for entrustment ratings on E-ASSESS ranged from 0.65 to 0.77, while ICC among raters of the clinical tool were 0.59 and 0.57. We found no significant correlations between E-ASSESS ratings and clinical practice ratings for either EPA (r = -0.35 and 0.38, P > .05). CONCLUSIONS: Assessment following an EPA framework in the simulation context may be useful to provide data points to inform entrustment decisions as part of resident assessment.