Improving Disposition Decision-Making for Pediatric Diabetic Ketoacidosis: A Quality Improvement Study

Retrospective Outcomes Comparison by Treatment Location for Pediatric Mild and Moderate Diabetic Ketoacidosis

OBJECTIVES

Pediatric diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is often treated in a PICU, but nonsevere DKA may not necessitate PICU admission. At our institution, nonsevere DKA was treated on the floor until policy change shifted care to the PICU. We describe outcomes in pediatric mild to moderate DKA by treatment location.

METHODS

Patients aged 2 to 21 with mild to moderate DKA (pH <7.3 but >7.1), treated on the floor from January 1, 2018 to July 31, 2020 and PICU from August 1, 2020 to October 1, 2022 were included. We performed a single-center, retrospective cohort study; primary outcome was DKA duration (from emergency department diagnosis to resolution), secondary outcomes included hospital length of stay, and complication rates, based on treatment location.

RESULTS

Seventy nine floor and 65 PICU encounters for mild to moderate pediatric DKA were analyzed. There were no differences in demographics, initial pH, or bicarbonate; PICU patients had more acute kidney injury on admission. Floor patients had a shorter DKA duration (10 hours [interquartile range 7-13] vs 11 hours [9-15]; P = .04), and a shorter median length of stay (median 43.5 hours [interquartile range 31-62] vs 49 hours [32-100]; P < .01). No patients had clinical signs of cerebral edema; other complications occurred at similar rates. PICU patients received significantly more intravenous electrolyte boluses, but there were no differences in dysrhythmia or electrolyte abnormalities on final serum chemistry.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study did not find a clear benefit to admitting patients with mild to moderate DKA to the PICU instead of the hospital floor. Our findings suggest that some children with nonsevere DKA may be treated safely in a non-PICU setting.

An EHR-based method to structure, standardize, and automate clinical documentation tasks for pharmacists to generate extractable outcomes

As the recognition of team-based care grows and pharmacists increase in patient care interventions, it is important that tools to track clinical services are easily accessible and well-integrated into workflow for all providers. We describe and discuss feasibility and implementation of data tools in an electronic health record to evaluate a pragmatic clinical pharmacy intervention focused on deprescribing in aged adults delivered at multiple clinical sites in a large academic health system. Of the data tools utilized, we were able to demonstrate clear documentation frequency of certain phrases during the intervention period for 574 patients receiving opioids and 537 patients receiving benzodiazepines. Although clinical decision support and documentation tools exist, they are underutilized or cumbersome to integrate into primary health care and strategies, such as employed, are a solution. This communication incorporates the importance of clinical pharmacy information systems in research design.

A Quality Improvement Approach to Improving Discharge Documentation

Introduction

Accurate discharge documentation is critical to ensuring a safe and effective transition of care following hospitalization, yet many discharge summaries do not meet consensus standards for content. A local needs assessment demonstrated gaps in documentation of 3 essential elements: discharge diagnosis, discharge medications, and follow-up appointments. This study aimed to increase the completion of three discharge elements from a baseline of 45% by 20 percentage points over 16 months for patients discharged from the general pediatrics service.

Methods

Ten discharge summaries were randomly selected and analyzed during each successive 2-week time period. Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles aimed to improve provider knowledge of essential discharge summary content, clarify communication during rounds, and create electronic health record shortcuts and quick-reference tools.

Results

The percentage of discharge summaries containing all 3 required elements increased from 45% to 73%. Specifically, documentation increased for discharge diagnosis (65%-87%), discharge medications (71%-90%), and follow-up appointments (88%-93%). There was no significant delay in discharge summary completion.

Conclusions

Discharge summaries are meaningfully and sustainably improved through provider education, workflows for clear communication, and electronic health record optimization.