The impact of pediatric intensive care unit volume on mortality: a hierarchical instrumental variable analysis.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the relation between annual pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) admission volume and mortality.


METHODS
Nonconcurrent cohort design.


METHODS
Pediatric patients included in the most currently available research database from the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Evaluations (PICUEs).


METHODS
A total of 34,880 consecutive pediatric admissions to a contemporary volunteer sample of 15 U.S. PICUs.


RESULTS
We conducted an instrumental variable analysis and adjusted for similarities between patients admitted to different PICUs using mixed-effects, hierarchical techniques. Case mix and severity of illness was adjusted for using patient-level data and the Pediatric Risk of Mortality, version III (PRISM III). On average, admission to higher-volume PICUs was associated with lower severity-adjusted mortality (odds ratio = 0.68 per 100 patient increase in volume; 95% confidence interval: 0.52-0.89) when volume was analyzed as a linear term; however, when PICU volume was analyzed as a quadratic term, we found the lowest severity-adjusted mortality rates among PICUs with annual admission volumes between 992 and 1,491. Furthermore, lower severity-adjusted mortality rates were primarily found among patients with less than a 10% PRISM III predicted risk of mortality.


CONCLUSIONS
Although there is an association between lower severity-adjusted mortality among higher volume PICUs, our data suggest that best outcomes are among mid- to large-sized PICUs. These data support minimum annual admission criteria for PICUs but raise the concern that PICUs with very high annual admission volumes may operate beyond an ideal capacity.
Marcin
James P
JP
UC Davis Children's Hospital, University of California Davis School of Medicine, Sacramento, CA 95817, USA. jpmarcin@ucdavis.edu
Song
Jun
J
Leigh
J Paul
JP
D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D015278:Intensive Care Units, Pediatric / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010343:Patient Admission / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States