• Shannon L Cramm, Dionne A Graham, Martin L Blakely, Robert A Cowles, Shaun M Kunisaki, Aaron M Lipskar, Robert T Russell, Matthew T Santore, Jennifer R DeFazio, Cornelia L Griggs, Danielle I Aronowitz, Myron Allukian, Brendan T Campbell, Nicole M Chandler, Devon T Collins, Sarah J Commander, Katerina Dukleska, Justice C Echols, Joseph R Esparaz, Christina Feng, Claire Gerall, David N Hanna, Olivia A Keane, Sean E McLean, Elizabeth Pace, Stefan Scholz, Shelby R Sferra, Elisabeth T Tracy, Sacha Williams, Lucy Zhang, Katherine He, Shawn J Rangel, and Eastern Pediatric Surgery Network.
• Department of Surgery, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
• Ann. Surg. 2025 Jan 1; 281 (1): 170175170-175.

ObjectiveTo develop a severity-adjusted, hospital-level benchmarking comparative performance report for postoperative organ space infection (OSI) and antibiotic utilization in children with complicated appendicitis.BackgroundNo benchmarking data exist to aid hospitals in identifying and prioritizing opportunities for infection prevention or antimicrobial stewardship in children with complicated appendicitis.MethodsThis was a multicenter cohort study using National Surgical Quality Improvement Program-Pediatric data from 16 hospitals participating in a regional research consortium, augmented with antibiotic utilization data obtained through supplemental chart review. Children with complicated appendicitis who underwent appendectomy from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2020 were included. Thirty-day postoperative OSI rates and cumulative antibiotic utilization were compared between hospitals using observed-to-expected (O/E) ratios after adjusting for disease severity using mixed-effect models. Hospitals were considered outliers if the 95% CI for O/E ratios did not include 1.0.ResultsA total of 1790 patients were included. Overall, the OSI rate was 15.6% (hospital range: 2.6% to 39.4%) and median cumulative antibiotic utilization was 9.0 days (range: 3.0 to 13.0). Across hospitals, adjusted O/E ratios ranged 5.7-fold for OSI (0.49 to 2.80, P = 0.03) and 2.4-fold for antibiotic utilization (0.59 to 1.45, P < 0.01). Three (19%) hospitals were outliers for OSI (1 high and 2 low performers), and 8 (50%) were outliers for antibiotic utilization (5 high and 3 low utilizers). Ten (63%) hospitals were identified as outliers in one or both measures.ConclusionsA comparative performance benchmarking report may help hospitals identify and prioritize quality improvement opportunities for infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship, as well as identify exemplar performers for dissemination of best practices.Copyright © 2024 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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