Improving Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Discharge Timeliness of Infants with Bronchiolitis Using Clinical Decision Support.

BACKGROUND: Identifying children ready for transfer out of the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) is an area that may benefit from clinical decision support (CDS). We previously implemented a quality improvement (QI) initiative to accelerate the transfer evaluation of non-medically complex PICU patients with viral bronchiolitis receiving floor-appropriate respiratory support. OBJECTIVES: Design a CDS tool adaptation of this QI initiative to further accelerate transfer evaluation of appropriate patients. METHODS: The original initiative focused on identifying for transfer evaluation otherwise healthy children admitted to the PICU with bronchiolitis who had been receiving floor-appropriate levels of respiratory support for at least 6 hours. However, this initiative required that clinicians manually track the respiratory support of qualifying patients. We designed an electronic health record (EHR)-based CDS tool to automate identification of transfer-ready candidates. The tool parses EHR data to identify children meeting prior QI initiative criteria and alerts clinicians to assess transfer readiness once a child has been receiving floor-appropriate respiratory support for 6 hours. We compared time from reaching floor-appropriate support to placement of the transfer order ("time-to-transfer"), PICU length of stay (LOS), and hospital LOS between patients admitted prior to our QI initiative (December 1, 2018-October 19, 2019, "pre-QI phase"), during the initiative but before CDS tool implementation (October 20, 2019-February 7, 2022, "QI phase"), and after CDS implementation (February 8-November 11, 2022, "CDS phase"). RESULTS: CDS-phase patients (n = 131) had a shorter median time-to-transfer of 5.23 (interquartile range [IQR], 3.38-10.0) hours compared with QI-phase patients (n = 304) at 5.93 (IQR, 4.23-12.2) hours (p = 0.04). PICU and hospital LOS values decreased from the pre-QI (n = 150) to QI phase. Though LOS reductions were sustained during the CDS phase, further reductions from QI to CDS phase were not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: An EHR-based CDS adaptation of a prior QI initiative facilitated timely identification of PICU patients with bronchiolitis ready for transfer evaluation. Such tools might allow PICU clinicians to focus on other high-acuity tasks while accelerating transfer evaluation of appropriate patients.

Reducing PICU-to-Floor Time-to-Transfer Decision in Critically Ill Bronchiolitis Patients using Quality Improvement Methodology.

INTRODUCTION: Specific criteria for de-escalation from the PICU are often not included in viral bronchiolitis institutional pathways. Variability of transfer preferences can prolong PICU length of stay. We aimed to decrease the time from reaching floor-appropriate heated high flow nasal cannula (HHF) settings to the transfer decision by 20% through standardizing PICU-to-floor transfer assessment in a PICU bronchiolitis cohort. METHODS: We included PICU bronchiolitis admissions from October 2019 to April 2020, who were 6-months to 2-years-old with no comorbidities nor intubation during their encounter. Our intervention bundle included introduction of transfer criteria and standardization of transfer-readiness assessment. The primary outcome was time from reaching floor-appropriate HHF settings [8 L per minutes (Lpm)] to placement of the transfer order ("time-to-transfer decision"). The secondary outcome was PICU length of stay. The main process measure was the proportion of patients transferred on ≥6 Lpm HHF. Balancing measures included Rapid Response Team activation and unplanned PICU readmission. We assessed admissions meeting inclusion criteria from December, 2018-March, 2019 for the preintervention baseline. RESULTS: Special cause variation indicated improvement in our primary outcome and process measures. Comparison of baseline to postintervention revealed a reduction in median time-to-transfer decision (14.4-7.8 hours; P < 0.001) and increase in children transferred on ≥6 Lpm (51%-72%; P < 0.001). We observed no change in PICU length of stay or balancing measures. CONCLUSION: Standardizing de-escalation criteria and transfer-readiness assessment reduced the time-to-transfer decision out of the PICU and increased the proportion transferred on ≥6 Lpm HHF for children with viral bronchiolitis without increasing PICU readmissions.

Confidence-weighted Testing as an Impactful Education Intervention within a Pediatric Sepsis Quality Improvement Initiative.

INTRODUCTION: Confidence-weighted testing assesses learners' beliefs about their knowledge and skills. As part of a hospital-wide quality improvement initiative to enhance care for pediatric patients with suspected sepsis, we developed a novel intervention using confidence-weighted testing to identify institutional areas of misinformation and knowledge gaps while also providing real-time feedback to individual learners. METHODS: We developed pediatric sepsis eLearning modules incorporating confidence-weighted testing. We distributed them to nurses, advanced practitioners, and physicians in emergency departments and acute care/non-intensive care unit inpatient settings in our hospital system. We analyzed completion and response data over 2 years following module distribution. Our outcomes included completion, confidently held misinformation (CHM; when a learner answers a question confidently but incorrectly), struggle (when a learner repeatedly answers a question incorrectly or with low confidence), and mastery (when a learner initially answers a question correctly and confidently). RESULTS: Eighty-three percent of assigned learners completed the modules (1,463/1,754). Although nurses had significantly more misinformation and struggled more than physicians and advanced practitioners, learners of all roles achieved 100% mastery as part of module completion. The greatest CHM and struggle were found in serum lactate interpretation's nuances and the hemodynamic shock states commonly seen in sepsis. CONCLUSIONS: Our novel application of confidence-weighted testing enhanced learning by correcting learners' misinformation. It also identified systems issues and institutional knowledge gaps as targets for future improvement.

An Acute Care Sepsis Response System Targeting Improved Antibiotic Administration.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Pediatric sepsis quality improvement in emergency departments has been well described and associated with improved survival. Acute care (non-ICU inpatient) units differ in important ways, and optimal approaches to improving sepsis processes and outcomes in this setting are not yet known. Our objective was to increase the proportion of acute care sepsis cases in our health system with initial antibiotic order-to-administration time ≤60 minutes by 20% from a baseline of 43% to 52% by December 2020. METHODS: Employing the Model for Improvement with broad stakeholder engagement, we developed and implemented interventions aimed at effective intervention for sepsis cases on acute care units. We analyzed process and outcome metrics over time using statistical process control charts. We used descriptive statistics to explore differences in antibiotic order-to-administration time and inform ongoing improvement. RESULTS: We cared for 187 patients with sepsis over the course of our initiative. The proportion within our goal antibiotic order-to-administration time rose from 43% to 64% with evidence of special cause variation after our interventions. Of all patients, 66% experienced ICU transfer and 4% died. CONCLUSIONS: We successfully decreased antibiotic order-to-administration time. We also introduced a novel model for sepsis response systems that integrates interventions designed for the complexities of acute care settings. We demonstrated impactful local improvements in the acute care setting where quality improvement reports and success have previously been limited.

Managing Diagnostic Uncertainty in Pediatric Sepsis Quality Improvement with a Two-Tiered Approach.

Severe sepsis requires timely, resource-intensive resuscitation, a challenge when a sepsis diagnosis is not confirmed. The overall goals were to create a pediatric sepsis program that provided high-quality critical care in severe sepsis (Sepsis Stat), and, in possible sepsis, flexible evaluation and treatment that promoted stewardship (Sepsis Yellow). The primary aims were to decrease time to antibiotics and the intensive care unit requirement. METHODS: A 2-tiered clinical pathway was implemented at 6 pediatric emergency departments and urgent care centers, incorporating order sets, education, paging. The Sepsis Stat pathway included 2 nurses, hand delivery of antibiotics, resuscitation room use. The Sepsis Yellow pathway included prioritized orders, standardized procedures, close monitoring, and evaluation of whether antibiotics were warranted. RESULTS: From April 2012 to December 2017, we treated 3,640 patients with suspected and confirmed sepsis. Among the 932 severe sepsis patients, the 30-day, in-hospital mortality was 0.9%. Arrival to recognition time improved from 50 to 4 minutes. Recognition to antibiotic time demonstrated an in-control process in our goal range with a median of 43 minutes for Sepsis Stat patients, 59 minutes for Sepsis Yellow patients. The proportion of severe sepsis patients requiring intensive care unit care declined from 45% to 34%. On the Sepsis Yellow pathway, 23% were de-escalated with discharge to home without antibiotics. CONCLUSIONS: This novel 2-tiered approach to pediatric sepsis quality improvement in varied emergency care settings improved process and outcome measures in severe sepsis while promoting stewardship and de-escalation where appropriate. Matching resources to the degree of illness was important in supporting quality care in potentially septic children.

A Strategy for the Renovation of a Clinical Pathways Program.

INTRODUCTION: Clinical pathways (CPs) translate best available evidence to the local care context and intend to inform clinical decision-making, optimize care, and decrease variation. This article describes a CPs program improvement process at a free-standing academic children's hospital. Aims: (1) improve the pathway development process; (2) identify and address gaps; (3) strengthen measurement; (4) increase efficiency in cycle time to build a pathway; (5) increase multidisciplinary participation; (6) integrate into the electronic health record ; and (7) and increase pathway utilization. METHODS: We renovated the CP program using a structured, improvement process. A series of internal stakeholder and external colleague interviews informed the process. To improve the program, we developed and implemented different interventions. RESULTS: The streamlined process reduced the overall time for completion from a median of 15 to 5 months (measured from the date of first meeting with the clinical improvement team to approval), a 70% increase in efficiency. Between 1994 and 2015, the hospital had 33 CPs. There was a 78% increase in the total number of pathways after the renovation with 26 additional pathways. CONCLUSIONS: Renovation of the CP program led to early success through an improved development process, alleviation of programmatic gaps, inclusion of measures within each pathway, increased timely completion, multidisciplinary involvement, integration into the electronic health record, and improved utilization. Initial results are encouraging, and the lessons learned should be helpful to other programs. Further program development is ongoing, focusing on continued improvements in implementation and overall program measures.