Improvement in Pediatric Cardiac Surgical Outcomes Through Inter-Hospital Collaboration

• Published in: Journal of the American College of Cardiology 2019-12, Vol.74 (22), p.2786-2795
• Main Authors: Gaies, Michael, Pasquali, Sara K., Banerjee, Mousumi, Dimick, Justin B., Birkmeyer, John D., Zhang, Wenying, Alten, Jeffrey A., Chanani, Nikhil, Cooper, David S., Costello, John M., Gaynor, J. William, Ghanayem, Nancy, Jacobs, Jeffrey P., Mayer, John E., Ohye, Richard G., Scheurer, Mark A., Schwartz, Steven M., Tabbutt, Sarah, Charpie, John R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0735-1097; 1558-3597
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jacc.2019.09.046

We formed the Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Consortium (PC4) to improve the quality of care for patients undergoing pediatric and congenital heart surgery through transparent data sharing and collaborative learning between participants. We analyzed 19,600 consecutive surgical hospitalizations in the PC4 clinical registry to determine if postoperative outcomes improved over time through participation in PC4. We observed statistically significant improvement in mortality (22% reduction), major complications (12% reduction), duration of mechanical ventilation (13% reduction), and critical care length of stay (5% reduction). These findings appear unrelated to secular improvement trends, and likely reflect PC4’s commitment to transparency and collaboration.