The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) pediatric quality indicators (PDIs): accidental puncture or laceration during surgery in children.

Context: The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) pediatric quality indicators (PDIs) are measures designed to evaluate the quality of pediatric healthcare. They specifically focus on adverse events that are potentially avoidable, including complications and iatrogenic events. PDI 1 refers to accidental puncture or laceration.

Objective: To determine risk factors and outcomes associated with PDI 1 in a population of pediatric surgical patients.

Design, Setting, And Patients: The Nationwide Inpatient Sample and Kids Inpatient Database were used to identify hospitalized pediatric surgical patients in the United States (age: 0-18) from 1988 to 2005. The data from these 1,939,540 patients was linked to the AHRQ PDIs using AHRQ WinQI software, and 7,033 pediatric patients with PDI 1 were identified. A 1:3 matched case control design was implemented with 6,459 cases (patients with PDI 1) and 19,377 controls (patients without PDI 1) matched on age, race, gender, and hospital ID. Cases and controls were stratified into procedure categories based on diagnosis related group procedure codes.

Main Outcome Measures: To examine the relationship between PDI 1 and procedure category, as well as the outcomes of in-hospital mortality, length of stay, and total hospital charges for cases compared with controls.

Results: Of the 4,627 patients with PDI 1 stratified into procedure categories, the highest proportion of PDI 1 cases occurred in the gastrointestinal (30.19%), cardiothoracic (19.6%), and the orthopedic (11.13%) categories. Logistic regression analysis for PDI 1, controlling for admission type and insurance status, revealed a statistically significant higher odds of PDI 1 in the gynecology (OR: 1.69, P < 0.001) and transplant (OR: 1.45, P: 0.026) procedure categories. Multivariable regression analysis revealed patients with PDI 1 were more likely to die (OR: 1.91, P < 0.001), had a 4.81 day longer length of stay (95% CI: 4.26-5.36, P < 0.001) and had USD 36,291 higher total hospital charges (95% CI: USD 32,583-USD 40,000, P < 0.001) compared with patients without PDI 1.

Conclusions: Cases of PDI 1 were most commonly associated with the gastrointestinal, cardiothoracic, and orthopedic procedure categories, and these were also 3 of the most common procedure categories overall. Controlling for type of procedure and other variables, the procedure categories having the highest likelihood of PDI 1 were gynecology and transplant. PDI 1 was found to be associated with greater mortality, longer length of stay, and greater total hospital charges.