Goals of Surgical Interventions in Youths Receiving Palliative Care.

Importance: Most youths receiving palliative care undergo many surgical interventions over their lifetimes. The intended purposes of interventions in the context of goals of care are not commonly articulated.

Objective: To describe the goals and purposes of surgical intervention in youths receiving palliative care and propose a framework discussing intervention using goal-oriented language.

Mapping Surgical Intervention Trajectories in Seriously Ill Children Receiving Palliative Care.

Background/purpose: Despite the prevalence of surgical intervention in seriously ill children, data is scarce regarding interventions performed based on type of serious illness. We therefore sought to evaluate the surgical interventions performed from the time of serious illness diagnosis to the present in a cohort of children receiving palliative care, including identification of the surgical specialists involved in these procedures.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort analysis of surgical interventions in 197 children enrolled in a multicenter prospective cohort study (Pediatric Palliative Care Research Network SHARE Study).

Minority-Serving Hospitals Are Associated With Low Within-Hospital Disparity.

Background: Disparities in obstetric care have been well documented, but disparities in the within-hospital population have not been as extensively explored. The objective is to assess cesarean delivery rate disparities at the hospital level in a nationally recognized low risk of cesarean delivery group.

Methods: An observational study using a national population-based database, Nationwide Inpatient Sample, from 2008 to 2011 was conducted.