Use of Post-Acute Facility Care in Children Hospitalized With Acute Respiratory Illness
BACKGROUND: Recovery from respiratory illness (RI), a common reason for hospitalization, can be protracted for some children because of high illness severity or underlying medical complexity.
OBJECTIVE: We assessed which children hospitalized with RI are the most likely to use post-acute facility care (PAC) for recovery.
METHODS: Retrospective analysis of 609,800 hospitalizations for patients in 43 US children’s hospitals between 2010-2015 for RI, identified with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Clinical Classification System. Discharge to PAC was identified using Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Discharge Status Codes. We compared patient characteristics by PAC use with generalized estimating equations.
RESULTS: There were 2660 (0.4%) RI hospitalizations resulting in PAC transfer (n = 2660, 0.4%). Discharges to PAC had greater percentages of technology assistance (83.2% vs 15.1%), neuromuscular chronic condition (57.5% vs 8.9%), and mechanical ventilation (52.7% vs 9.1%), P < 0.001 for all. The highest likelihood of PAC use occurred with ≥11 vs no chronic conditions (odds ratio [OR] 11.7 [95% CI, 8.0-17.2]), ≥9 vs no therapeutic medication classes (OR 4.8 [95% CI, 1.8-13.0]), and existing tracheostomy (OR 3.0, 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.6-3.5). Median (interquartile range [IQR]) acute-care length of stay (LOS) for children most likely to use PAC was 19 (8-56) days; LOS remained long (median 13 [6-41] days) for children with the same attributes (n = 9448) not transferred to PAC.
CONCLUSIONS: Children with RI who are most likely to use PAC have a high prevalence of multiple chronic conditions, multiple medications, and medical technology. Future investigations should assess the supply of PAC against the demand of hospitalized children with RI who might need it. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2017;12:626-631. © 2017 Society of Hospital Medicine
© 2017 Society of Hospital Medicine
Demographic and Clinical Characteristics
We assessed patient demographic and clinical characteristics that might correlate with PAC use following acute-care hospitalization for RI. Demographic characteristics included gender, age at admission in years, payer (public, private, and other), and race/ethnicity (Hispanic, non-Hispanic black, non-Hispanic white, other).
Clinical characteristics included chronic conditions (type and number) and assistance with medical technology. Chronic condition and medical technology characteristics were assessed with ICD-9-CM diagnosis codes. PHIS contain up to 41 ICD-9-CM diagnosis codes per hospital discharge record. To identify the presence and number of chronic conditions, we used the AHRQ Chronic Condition Indicator system, which categorizes over 14,000 ICD-9-CM diagnosis codes into chronic vs non-chronic conditions.14,15 Children hospitalized with a chronic condition were further classified as having a complex chronic condition (CCC) using Feudtner and colleagues’ ICD-9-CM diagnosis classification scheme.16 CCCs represent defined diagnosis groupings expected to last longer than 12 months and involving either a single organ system, severe enough to require specialty pediatric care and hospitalization, or multiple organ systems.17,18 Hospitalized children who were assisted with medical technology were identified with ICD-9-CM codes indicating the use of a medical device to manage and treat a chronic illness (eg, ventricular shunt to treat hydrocephalus) or to maintain basic body functions necessary for sustaining life (eg, a tracheostomy tube for breathing).19,20 We distinguished children undergoing tracheotomy during hospitalization using ICD-9-CM procedure codes 31.1 and 31.2.
Acute-Care Hospitalization Characteristics
We also assessed the relationship between acute-care hospitalization characteristics and use of PAC after discharge, including US census region, LOS, use of intensive care, number of medication classes administered, and use of enhanced respiratory support. Enhanced respiratory support was defined as use of continuous or bilevel positive airway pressure (CPAP or BiPAP) or mechanical ventilation during the acute-care hospitalization for RI. These respiratory supports were identified using billing data in PHIS.
Statistical Analysis
In bivariable analysis, we compared demographic, clinical, and hospitalization characteristics of hospitalized children with vs without discharge to PAC using Rao-Scott chi-square tests and Wilcoxon rank-sum tests as appropriate. In multivariable analysis, we derived a generalized linear mix effects model with fixed effects for demographic, clinical, and hospitalization characteristics that were associated with PAC at P < 0.1 in bivariable analysis (ie, age, gender, race/ethnicity, payer, medical technology, use of intensive care unit [ICU], use of positive pressure or mechanical ventilation, hospital region, LOS, new tracheostomy, existing tracheostomy, other technologies, number of medications, number of chronic conditions [of any complexity], and type of complex chronic conditions). We controlled for clustering of patients within hospitals by including a random intercept for each hospital. We also assessed combinations of patient characteristics on the likelihood of PAC use with classification and regression tree (CART) modeling. Using CART, we determined which characteristic combinations were associated with the highest and lowest use of PAC using binary split and post-pruning, goodness of fit rules.21 All statistical analyses were performed using SAS v.9.4 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC), and R v.3.2 (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria) using the “party” package. The threshold for statistical significance was set at P < 0.05.
RESULTS
Of the 609,800 hospitalizations for RI, PAC use after discharge occurred for 2660 (0.4%). RI discharges to PAC accounted for 2.1% (n = 67,405) of hospital days and 2.7% ($280 million) of hospital cost of all RI hospitalizations. For discharges to PAC, the most common RI were pneumonia (29.1% [n = 773]), respiratory failure or insufficiency (unspecified reason; 22.0% [n = 584]), and upper respiratory infection (12.2% [n = 323]).
Demographic Characteristics
Median age at acute-care admission was higher for PAC vs non-PAC discharges (6 years [interquartile range {IQR} 1-15] vs 2 years [0-7], P < 0.001; Table 1). Hispanic patients accounted for a smaller percentage of RI discharges to PAC vs non-PAC (14.1% vs 21.8%, P < 0.001) and a higher percentage to PAC were for patients with public insurance (75.9% vs 62.5, P < 0.001; Table 1).
Clinical Characteristics
A greater percentage of RI hospitalizations discharged to PAC vs not-PAC had ≥1 CCC (94.9% vs 33.5%), including a neuromuscular CCC (57.5% vs 8.9%) or respiratory CCC (62.5% vs 12.0%), P < 0.001 for all (Table 2). A greater percentage discharged to PAC was assisted with medical technology (83.2% vs 15.1%), including respiratory technology (eg, tracheostomy; 53.8% vs 5.4%) and gastrointestinal technology (eg, gastrostomy; 71.9% vs 11.8%), P < 0.001 for all. Of the children with respiratory technology, 14.8% (n = 394) underwent tracheotomy during the acute-care hospitalization. Children discharged to PAC had a higher percentage of multiple chronic conditions. For example, the percentages of children discharged to PAC vs not with ≥7 conditions were 54.5% vs 7.0% (P < 0.001; Table 2). The most common chronic conditions experienced by children discharged to PAC included epilepsy (41.2%), gastroesophageal reflux (36.6%), cerebral palsy (28.2%), and asthma (18.2%).
