Ensuring Every Child Receives the Care They Deserve

In the U.S., not all children receive the same quality of medical care.

Research shows that children living in neighborhoods with fewer opportunities and resources — as measured by the Child Opportunity Index (COI) — are more often underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed.

When that happens, they don’t receive timely treatment. For a condition like sepsis, which takes the lives of 3 million kids worldwide annually, any delay in treatment can be deadly.

But a new study using Children’s Hospital Association’s proprietary data program, the Pediatric Health Information System (PHIS®), has good news.

“Quality improvement programs can reduce unfair gaps in care so that all children — no matter where they live — get faster, safer treatment,” said Lori Rutman, MD, MPH, pediatric emergency medicine physician at Seattle Children's Hospital and lead author of the study.

The study looked at what happened when hospitals followed best practices developed by the Improving Sepsis Outcomes Collaborative (IPSO) over five years. In a “care bundle,” IPSO recommended several reliable processes for identifying sepsis, such as using standardized screening tools and gathering for team huddles when sepsis symptoms arise.

As hospitals followed the IPSO recommendations, discrepancies in sepsis recognition decreased. In some cases, they were completely eliminated.

“The IPSO bundle and the broader collaborative helped drive more consistent, standardized care and appears to have reduced disparities,” Rutman said. “Care improved for all children, but the biggest gains were seen in the children from the most disadvantaged neighborhoods.”

The IPSO collaborative was an eight-year, 66-hospital effort that saved an estimated 570 children’s lives.

The study shows the power of data-driven quality improvement. It’s why CHA provides the only database in the world focused solely on children’s hospitals, which are unique organizations serving a unique population.

“PHIS made it possible to uncover disparities and then measure whether those gaps narrowed over time,” Rutman said. “Without PHIS, we could not have examined how social disadvantage (measured by COI) influenced sepsis care and outcomes.”

This is just one example of how CHA is advancing pediatric health care nationwide — by leading collaborative efforts and developing critical data tools that help ensure every child receives the care they deserve.