Variation in Hospitalization Rates Following Emergency Department Visits in Children with Medical Complexity

Children with medical complexity (CMC) have lifelong, complex chronic conditions (CCCs) associated with multimorbidity, severe functional limitations, myriad health care needs, and high resource use. Although hospitalizations have been a long-standing measure of a potentially avoidable CMC health service, little is known about the opportunity to influence the hospitalization risk from an ED visit. Therefore, HIP Investigator Dr. Ryan Coller et al. identified factors associated with admission within ED encounters and quantified both the overall ED admission rate for CMC and admission rate variation across children’s hospitals.