| Abstrakt: |
Abstract Objective To describe the development of a Pediatric Neurocritical Care (PNCCM) service; define the patient population that requires the service and describe important outcome parameters. Methods An analysis of prospectively collected data from a database was performed in a tertiary-care, academic children’s hospital. Critically ill children who received a PNCCM consult between April, 2006 and May 2007 were included in the analysis. Demographic data (including age, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) admission diagnosis, reason for PNCCM consult, timing of consult, and medical/neurological co-morbidities), outcome (PICU mortality and hospital length of stay) and result of consults (resources utilized, new consults or differential diagnoses suggested) were collected. Results Over a 14-month period, 373 PNCCM consults were obtained (total PICU admissions 1,423) at an average of 3.6 days ± 0.5 after PICU admission. PNCCM consults had a higher mortality than overall PICU population (11.0% vs. 5.2%; P Conclusion A PNCCM team was asked to assist in managing almost one-quarter of the total patient census in an urban, tertiary-care, teaching hospital. The number of consults is comparable to those observed in early studies in adult NCCM team development but the admission diagnoses are distinct. The PNCCM consulted on children with high mortality rates. Future studies will be needed to determine if the presence of a PNCCM can result in improved patient outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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