• Stephanie F Polites, Elizabeth B Habermann, Abdalla E Zarroug, Amy E Wagie, Robert R Cima, Rebecca Wiskerchen, Christopher R Moir, and Michael B Ishitani.
• Department of Surgery, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, United States.
• J. Pediatr. Surg. 2015 Apr 1;50(4):586-90.

Background/PurposeIdentifying quality in pediatric surgery can be difficult given the low frequency of postoperative complications. We compared postoperative events following pediatric surgical procedures at a single institution identified by ACS-NSQIP Pediatric (ACS NSQIP-P) methodology and AHRQ Pediatric Quality Indicators (AHRQ PDIs), an administrative tool.MethodsAHRQ PDI algorithms were run on inpatient hospital discharge abstracts for 1257 children in the 2010 to 2013 ACS NSQIP-P at our institution. Four events-pulmonary complications, postoperative sepsis, wound dehiscence and bleeding-were matched between ACS NSQIP-P and AHRQ PDI.ResultsEvents were identified by ACS NSQIP-P in 7.9% of children and by AHRQ PDI in 8.0%. The four matched events were identified in 5.5% and 3.7%, respectively. Specificities of AHRQ PDI ranged from 97% to 100% and sensitivities from 0 to 2%. The largest discrepancy was in bleeding, where AHRQ PDI captured 1 of the 54 events identified by ACS NSQIP-P. None of the 41 pulmonary, sepsis, and wound dehiscence events identified by AHRQ PDI were clinically relevant according to ACS NSQIP-P.ConclusionsAdverse events following pediatric surgery are infrequent; thus, additional measures of quality to supplement postoperative adverse events are needed. AHRQ PDIs are inadequate for assessing quality in pediatric surgery.Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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