Dataset Information

Health insurance and length of stay for children hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia.

ABSTRACT: Disparities in patterns of care and outcomes for ambulatory-care sensitive childhood conditions such as community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) persist. However, the influence of insurance status on length of stay (LOS) for children hospitalized with CAP remains unexplored.Secondary analysis of children (<18 years) hospitalized with CAP sampled in the Kids' Inpatient Database (KID) for years 1997, 2000, 2003, and 2006. Insurance status (private, public, uninsured) was based on claims data. Hospital LOS was calculated in days. Taking into account the complex sampling design, negative binomial regression models produced adjusted estimates of incidence rate ratios (IRR) for hospital LOS for children by insurance status.There was little variation in the categories of insurance status of children hospitalized with CAP between 1997 and 2006, with at least 40% privately insured, at least 40% publicly insured, and at least 5% uninsured in each sampled year. In all years, publicly insured children had a significantly longer hospital stay than privately insured children, and uninsured children had a significantly shorter hospital stay than privately insured children. These observed differences persisted after multivariate adjustment.Differences in LOS between uninsured, publicly insured, and privately insured children with CAP raise concerns about potential differences in hospital discharge practices related to insurance status and type. As healthcare reform is implemented, policy makers should strengthen efforts to reduce these disparities in order to achieve health for the population.

SUBMITTER: Pati S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3877930 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Health insurance and length of stay for children hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia.

Pati Susmita S Lorch Scott A SA Lee Grace E GE Sheffler-Collins Seth S Shah Samir S SS

Journal of hospital medicine 20111003 4

<h4>Background</h4>Disparities in patterns of care and outcomes for ambulatory-care sensitive childhood conditions such as community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) persist. However, the influence of insurance status on length of stay (LOS) for children hospitalized with CAP remains unexplored.<h4>Methods</h4>Secondary analysis of children (<18 years) hospitalized with CAP sampled in the Kids' Inpatient Database (KID) for years 1997, 2000, 2003, and 2006. Insurance status (private, public, uninsured) w ...[more]

PMID: 21972214

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Project description:Background: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a leading cause of hospitalization and mortality in children. Diagnosis remains challenging and there are no reliable tools to objectively risk stratify patients or predict clinical outcomes. Molecular distance to health (MDTH) is a genomic score that measures the global perturbation of the transcriptional profile and may help classify patients by disease severity. We evaluated the value of MDTH to assess disease severity in children hospitalized with CAP. Methods: Children hospitalized with CAP and matched healthy controls were enrolled in a prospective observational study. Blood samples were obtained for transcriptome analyses within 24 h of hospitalization. MDTH scores were calculated to assess disease severity and correlated with laboratory markers, such as white blood cell count, c-reactive protein (CRP), and procalcitonin (PCT), and clinical outcomes, including duration of fever and duration of hospitalization (LOS). Univariate and multivariable logistic regression were applied to assess factors associated with LOS and duration of fever after hospitalization. Results: Among children hospitalized with CAP (n = 152), pyogenic bacteria (PB) were detected in 16 (11%), Mycoplasma pneumoniae was detected in 41 (28%), respiratory viruses (RV) alone were detected in 78 (51%), and no pathogen was detected in 17 (11%) children. Statistical group comparisons identified 6,726 genes differentially expressed in patients with CAP vs. healthy controls (n = 39). Children with confirmed PB had higher MDTH scores than those with RV (p < 0.05) or M. pneumoniae (p < 0.01) detected alone. CRP (r = 0.39, p < 0.0001), PCT (r = 0.39, p < 0.0001), and MDTHs (r = 0.24, p < 0.01) correlated with duration of fever, while only MDTHs correlated with LOS (r = 0.33, p < 0.0001). Unadjusted analyses showed that both higher CRP and MDTHs were associated with longer LOS (OR 1.04 [1-1.07] and 1.12 [1.04-1.20], respectively), however, only MDTH remained significant when adjusting for other covariates (aOR 1.11 [1.01-1.22]). Conclusions: In children hospitalized with CAP MDTH score measured within 24 h of admission was independently associated with longer duration of hospitalization, regardless of the pathogen detected. This suggests that transcriptional biomarkers may represent a promising approach to assess disease severity in children with CAP.

Dataset Information

Health insurance and length of stay for children hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia.

Publications

Health insurance and length of stay for children hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia.

Similar Datasets

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