• Dane Saksa, Lena S Sun, Jonathan Rodean, Jay Berry, Matt Hall, Izabela Leahy, Lynne Ferrari, and Yolanda Y Huang.
• David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 10833 Le Conte Ave, Los Angeles, CA.
• J Neurosurg Anesthesiol. 2023 Jan 1; 35 (1): 153159153-159.

ObjectiveTo characterize resource utilization in the evaluation and treatment of hospitalized simple febrile seizure (SFS) patients in US tertiary pediatric hospitals.MethodsThis is a retrospective cohort study using the Pediatric Health Information System from 2010 to 2015. Children 6 months to 5 years of age who were inpatients with a diagnosis of SFS. Children who had brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), electroencephalography (EEG), or received anticonvulsants were compared with those who did not have testing or anticonvulsant treatment. Hospital-level variation in the utilization rates of MRI, EEG, or treatment with anticonvulsants was also evaluated.ResultsIn Pediatric Health Information System-participating institutions, 8.4% (n=3640) of children presenting to the emergency department with SFS were hospitalized. Among these SFS inpatients, 57.8% (n= 2104) did not receive further evaluation with MRI/EEG or treatment with anticonvulsants. There was evidence of wide inter-hospital variation in resource utilization rates. The median (interquartile range) utilization rate was 6.2% (3.0 to 11.0%) for MRI, 28.5% (16.0 to 46.3%) for EEG and 17.1% (10.9 to 22.3%) for treatment with anticonvulsants.ConclusionNo specific hospital-level factors were identified that contributed to the variation in resource utilization in the evaluation and management of hospitalized SFS patients.Copyright © 2022 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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