Characterizing pediatric high frequency users of California emergency departments

• Restricted to UC San Diego use only

Emergency department (ED) utilization has been increasing for the last several decades. Although there has been a focus on frequent ED users, little research has examined pediatric frequent ED users. The purpose of this study was to assess pediatric ED utilization in California and to describe those identified as frequent ED users. This was a retrospective multi-facility study of ED visits by children 1-17 years of age using statewide data from the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. Patients were classified into utilization groups by the number of ED visits in a one-year period prior to their last visit in 2013: occasional (1-5 visits) vs. frequent (>5 visit). Differences in patient characteristics were compared between occasional and frequent users. There were 688,582 patients between 1 and 17 years of age with 1,228,613 visits during the study period. Children with ≥ 6 visits (2.2%) accounted for 9.3% of all visits. 69% of frequent users had no visits to a pediatric ED. Over forty percent (41.9%) of frequent users visited 2 or more hospitals, compared to 8.2% of occasional users. Roughly a quarter (25.8%) of frequent users experienced visit severity scores of 4-5 compared to 7.8% of occasional users. In multivariate analysis, the characteristics with the largest associations with frequent ED use wer age, payer, and being admitted/ transferred. Conclusions: The majority of pediatric frequent users do not seek care in pediatric EDs. Age, prior admission, and Medicare/Medicaid appear to have the largest associations with pediatric patient frequent ED utilization

• 2018

• Supat, Benjamin R.

1 online resource (23 pages) : illustrations

Description based on online resource; title PDF cover page (viewed May 23, 2019)

Forms part of the UC San Diego School of Medicine independent study projects, Class of 2018

Includes bibliographical references

Title provided by the cataloger

• Academic Dissertations

• Dissertations, Academic--School of Medicine. (Discipline)--UCSD

• text

• English

La Jolla, California: University of California, San Diego

M.D. University of California, San Diego 2018

• Supat, Benjamin R.

Under copyright (US)

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2020-10-27