Pediatric Appendectomy
Product Overview
The Pediatric Appendectomy Advanced Application is aimed at Pediatric and Surgical Services clinical directors, operational directors, clinical program guidance teams, and operational guidance teams. The application focuses on providing data for a hospital system’s pediatric cohort to track morbidity and LOS of pediatric appendectomy patients.
Features
- Volume Dashboard: Provides information about surgery time by hour, discharge time, patient age, severity and surgeon.
- Readmission Dashboard: Provides information about readmission to the hospital and ED visits post appendectomy.
- Severity Dashboard: Provides the ability to match severity of the appendicitis (simple or complex) related to the care provided by physicians.
- LOS Dashboard: Provides LOS metrics and the ability to review data by severity and surgeon.
- Wound Classification Dashboard: Provides information about wound class, time of admission, post-op severity, antibiotic prescribed and time of administration, and surgeon.
- Executive Dashboard: Provides information on actual volume, cost per case, readmissions, LOS, etc.
Benefits
Benefits Include:
- Fewer SSIs.
- Decreased LOS for pediatric appendectomy patients. ED asthma admission.
- Lower cost per case for pediatric appendectomy patients.
Measures
Available Measures Include:
- Proportion of patents diagnosed with the appropriate severity of appendicitis.
- Proportion of patients who were prescribed the correct antibiotic in the appropriate time frame.
- Proportion of patients who receive an accurate diagnosis in a timely manner.
- Proportion of physicians who are using the correct order set.
Data Sources
- EMR
Background
There are approximately 250,000 cases of appendicitis diagnosed in pediatric patients each year. These same cases account for an estimated one million hospital days. Research has shown that the mean length of stay for appendectomy procedures can vary significantly based on a number of factors. These factors can be associated with variations in care which may be accounting for an increase in morbidity and LOS. Evaluating the care of these patients provides ample opportunities to improve outcomes.
What types of problems does Pediatric Appendectomy address?
To improve care of the pediatric patient with appendicitis, it’s helpful to have a birds-eye view of metrics associated with practices related to their hospital care. These metrics help organizations identify variations in care and guide the focus of improvement activities aimed at decreasing complications and LOS.
Use Cases
- A hospital wants to use data to help improve the time from a diagnosis of appendicitis to antibiotic administration and diagnosis to OR.
- A hospital’s executive team identifies the rate of surgical site infections has increased in pediatric appendectomy population and wish to decrease it.
- A Surgical Services Clinical Program wishes to track wound classifications to post-operative severity and surgeon.
Anticipated Improvements
- Fewer SSIs.
- Decreased LOS for pediatric appendectomy patients.
- Lower cost per case for pediatric appendectomy patients.
Success Measure Examples
There are 3 types of success measures:
Opportunity Identification:
- Identify how the severity of appendicitis (simple, complex) effects LOS.
Process Improvements:
- Improve documentation processes by X%. Improve time from diagnosis to antibiotic by X%. Improve time from diagnosis to OR by X%.
Outcomes Improvement:
- Decrease LOS by X%. Decrease morbidity by X%. Decrease SSI rate by X%
