Impact of oral nutrition supplements on hospital outcomes in pediatric patients.

Background: Nutrition deficiency is common among hospitalized children. Although oral nutrition supplements (ONS) may improve malnutrition in this population, the benefits and healthcare costs associated with their use have not yet been fully explored. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of ONS use on inpatient length of stay (LOS) and episode cost in hospitalized children.

Materials And Methods: Retrospective analysis of 557,348 hospitalizations of children aged 2-8 years in the Premier Research Database. The effect of ONS use on LOS and episode cost in a propensity score- matched sample was estimated in analyses with and without the use of instrumental variables (IVs) to reduce confounding from unobserved variables.

Results: ONS were prescribed in 6066 of 557,348 inpatient episodes (1.09%). In IV analysis, using a matched sample of 11,031 episodes, hospitalizations with ONS use had 14.8% shorter LOS (6.4 vs 7.5 days; 1.1 days [95% CI, 0.2-2.4]). Hospitalizations with ONS use had 9.7% lower cost ($16,552 vs $18,320; $1768 [95% CI, $1924-$1612]).

Conclusions: ONS use was associated with lower LOS and episode cost among pediatric inpatients. ONS use in hospitalized pediatric patients may provide a cost-effective, evidence-based approach to improving pediatric hospital care.