Pediatrics
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Health care providers play an important role in promoting tobacco use abstinence among adolescents. This study aimed to provide nationally representative data on the prevalence of provider tobacco use screening and advice delivered to adolescents. Cessation behaviors and correlates of past year quit attempts among current smokers are also explored. ⋯ Less than one-third of adolescents report being asked about tobacco use or being advised not to use tobacco. Increased tobacco use intervention by health care providers is needed to prevent initiation and increase cessation.
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Asthma, pneumonia, and bronchiolitis are the leading causes of admission for pediatric patients; however, the lack of accepted benchmarks is a barrier to quality improvement efforts. Using data from children hospitalized with asthma, bronchiolitis, or pneumonia, the goals of this study were to: (1) measure the 2012 performance of freestanding children's hospitals using clinical quality indicators; and (2) construct achievable benchmarks of care (ABCs) for the clinical quality indicators. ⋯ We report achievable benchmarks for inpatient care for asthma, bronchiolitis, and pneumonia. The establishment of national benchmarks will drive improvement at individual hospitals.
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Competence in the chest tube insertion procedure is vital for practitioners who take care of critically ill infants. The use of animals for training is discouraged, and there are no realistic simulation models available for the neonatal chest tube insertion procedure. The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of teaching the chest tube insertion procedure by using an easily constructed, nonanimal simulation model. ⋯ An educational intervention using an easily constructed and inexpensive chest tube insertion model is effective in improving knowledge, comfort, and skills in trainees. The model can be used repeatedly to maintain proficiency.
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Observational Study
Automated urinalysis and urine dipstick in the emergency evaluation of young febrile children.
The performance of automated flow cytometric urinalysis is not well described in pediatric urinary tract infection. We sought to determine the diagnostic performance of automated cell counts and emergency department point-of-care (POC) dipstick urinalyses in the evaluation of young febrile children. ⋯ Automated leukocyte and bacterial counts performed well in the diagnosis of urinary tract infection in these febrile pediatric patients, but POC dipstick may be an acceptable alternative in clinical settings that require rapid decision-making.
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To measure the hospital-level variation in admission rates for children receiving treatment of common pediatric illnesses across emergency departments (EDs) in US children's hospitals. ⋯ We observed greater than threefold variation in severity-adjusted admission rates for common pediatric conditions across US children's hospitals. Although local practices and hospital-level factors may partly explain this variation, our findings highlight the need for greater focus on the standardization of decisions regarding admission.