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WASHINGTON – , according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The only other difference between Black and White pediatric patients was the length of hospital stay and the length of time in the ICU among those who died. In both cases, Black children who died spent more time in the hospital and in the ICU, reported Michael H. Stroud, MD, a pediatric critical care physician at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, and his colleagues.
“Further investigations are needed to identify biases, conscious and unconscious, potential socioeconomic factors, and genetic predispositions leading to racial disparities in outcomes of children with pediatric sepsis, severe sepsis, and septic shock,” Dr Stroud and his colleagues said.
Nathan T. Chomilo, MD, adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, who was not involved in the study but reviewed it, said the research “builds upon existing evidence that our health care system has work to do to meet its goal of treating patients equitably and provide everyone the opportunity for health.” He found the racial disparity in death particularly striking in 2023. “In the U.S., with all our wealth, knowledge, and resources, very few children should die from this, let alone there be such a stark gap,” Dr. Chomilo wrote.
Racial disparities persist
Dr. Stroud noted that many institutions currently use “automated, real-time, algorithm-based detection of sepsis, severe sepsis, and septic shock incorporated into the electronic medical record,” which leads to earlier recognition and resuscitation and overall better outcomes. Yet racial disparities in sepsis mortality rates persist, and he and his colleagues wanted to explore whether they remained even with these EMR-incorporated systems.
The researchers analyzed data from all patients at Arkansas Children’s Hospital who had sepsis, severe sepsis, or septic shock between January 2018 and April 2022. The hospital uses a best practice advisory (BPA) in the EMR whose activation leads to a bedside huddle and clinical interventions. For this study, the researchers defined a sepsis episode as either a BPA activation or an EMR diagnosis of sepsis, severe sepsis, or septic shock.
Among the 3,514 patients who had a sepsis episode during the study, 60.5% were White (n = 2,126) and 20.9% were Black (n = 736). Overall mortality was 1.65%, but that included 3.13% of Black children versus 1.27% of White children (odds ratio [OR] 2.51, P = .001). No significant differences in mortality were seen in gender or age.
Clinical interventions in the two groups were also similar: Total IV antibiotic days were 23.8 days for Black children and 21.6 days for White children (P = .38); total vasoactive infusion days were 2.2 for Black children and 2.6 for White (P = .18); and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation was necessary for 26.1% of Black children and 18.5% of White children (P = .52).
Length of hospitalization stay, however, was an average 4 days longer for Black children (16.7 days) versus White children (12.7 days) who died (P = .03). ICU stay for Black children who died was also an average 1.9 days longer (7.57 vs. 5.7 days; P = .01). There were no significant differences in the EMR between Black and White patients, however, in the percent who were over the threshold for antibiotic administration and the percent who received an IV fluid bolus.
Contributing factors
Dr. Chomilo said that most BPA systems require staff – including rooming and triage staff, nurses. and physicians – to enter vital signs, order labs, enter the results into the system, and enter other data used by the algorithm. “So even though the time from when those BPA warnings flagged to when clinical interventions were documented didn’t show a significant difference, there are numerous other points along a child’s illness that may be contributing to these numbers,” Dr. Chomilo said.
For example, he pointed out that differences in health insurance coverage could have influenced whether their parent or caregiver was able to bring them in early enough to be diagnosed since studies have revealed disparate access to regular care due to structural racism in the health care system. Studies have also shown disparate rates of patients being triaged or having to wait longer in emergency departments, he added.
“When the child was brought in, how were they triaged? How long did they wait before they had vitals taken? How long until they were seen by a clinician?” Dr. Chomilo said. “Was their care on the inpatient ward the same or different? What was the source of sepsis? Was it all infectious or other issues [since] cancer and autoimmune illnesses can also trigger a sepsis evaluation, for example? Overall, I suspect answers to several of these questions would reveal a disparity due to structural racism that contributed to the ultimate disparity in deaths.”
Other social determinants of health that could have played a role in the outcome disparities here might include the family’s access to transportation options, parental employment or child care options, and nutrition access since baseline nutritional status can be a factor in the outcomes of severe illnesses like sepsis.
”I don’t think this study provided enough information about the potential causative factors to come to any strong conclusions,” Dr. Chomilo said. But it’s important for clinicians to be aware of how biases in the health care system put Black, Indigenous and other communities at higher risk for worse clinical outcomes.
“I would reiterate that clinicians in the hospital can help improve outcomes by being aware of structural racism and structural inequity and how that may contribute to their patient’s risk of severe illness as the decide how to approach their treatment and engaging the patient’s family,” Dr. Chomilo said. “We cannot rely solely on universal tools that don’t take this into account when we are looking to improve clinical outcomes for everyone. Otherwise we will see these gaps persist.”
No external funding sources were noted. Dr. Stroud and Dr. Chomilo had no disclosures.
WASHINGTON – , according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The only other difference between Black and White pediatric patients was the length of hospital stay and the length of time in the ICU among those who died. In both cases, Black children who died spent more time in the hospital and in the ICU, reported Michael H. Stroud, MD, a pediatric critical care physician at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, and his colleagues.
“Further investigations are needed to identify biases, conscious and unconscious, potential socioeconomic factors, and genetic predispositions leading to racial disparities in outcomes of children with pediatric sepsis, severe sepsis, and septic shock,” Dr Stroud and his colleagues said.
Nathan T. Chomilo, MD, adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, who was not involved in the study but reviewed it, said the research “builds upon existing evidence that our health care system has work to do to meet its goal of treating patients equitably and provide everyone the opportunity for health.” He found the racial disparity in death particularly striking in 2023. “In the U.S., with all our wealth, knowledge, and resources, very few children should die from this, let alone there be such a stark gap,” Dr. Chomilo wrote.
Racial disparities persist
Dr. Stroud noted that many institutions currently use “automated, real-time, algorithm-based detection of sepsis, severe sepsis, and septic shock incorporated into the electronic medical record,” which leads to earlier recognition and resuscitation and overall better outcomes. Yet racial disparities in sepsis mortality rates persist, and he and his colleagues wanted to explore whether they remained even with these EMR-incorporated systems.
The researchers analyzed data from all patients at Arkansas Children’s Hospital who had sepsis, severe sepsis, or septic shock between January 2018 and April 2022. The hospital uses a best practice advisory (BPA) in the EMR whose activation leads to a bedside huddle and clinical interventions. For this study, the researchers defined a sepsis episode as either a BPA activation or an EMR diagnosis of sepsis, severe sepsis, or septic shock.
Among the 3,514 patients who had a sepsis episode during the study, 60.5% were White (n = 2,126) and 20.9% were Black (n = 736). Overall mortality was 1.65%, but that included 3.13% of Black children versus 1.27% of White children (odds ratio [OR] 2.51, P = .001). No significant differences in mortality were seen in gender or age.
Clinical interventions in the two groups were also similar: Total IV antibiotic days were 23.8 days for Black children and 21.6 days for White children (P = .38); total vasoactive infusion days were 2.2 for Black children and 2.6 for White (P = .18); and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation was necessary for 26.1% of Black children and 18.5% of White children (P = .52).
Length of hospitalization stay, however, was an average 4 days longer for Black children (16.7 days) versus White children (12.7 days) who died (P = .03). ICU stay for Black children who died was also an average 1.9 days longer (7.57 vs. 5.7 days; P = .01). There were no significant differences in the EMR between Black and White patients, however, in the percent who were over the threshold for antibiotic administration and the percent who received an IV fluid bolus.
Contributing factors
Dr. Chomilo said that most BPA systems require staff – including rooming and triage staff, nurses. and physicians – to enter vital signs, order labs, enter the results into the system, and enter other data used by the algorithm. “So even though the time from when those BPA warnings flagged to when clinical interventions were documented didn’t show a significant difference, there are numerous other points along a child’s illness that may be contributing to these numbers,” Dr. Chomilo said.
For example, he pointed out that differences in health insurance coverage could have influenced whether their parent or caregiver was able to bring them in early enough to be diagnosed since studies have revealed disparate access to regular care due to structural racism in the health care system. Studies have also shown disparate rates of patients being triaged or having to wait longer in emergency departments, he added.
“When the child was brought in, how were they triaged? How long did they wait before they had vitals taken? How long until they were seen by a clinician?” Dr. Chomilo said. “Was their care on the inpatient ward the same or different? What was the source of sepsis? Was it all infectious or other issues [since] cancer and autoimmune illnesses can also trigger a sepsis evaluation, for example? Overall, I suspect answers to several of these questions would reveal a disparity due to structural racism that contributed to the ultimate disparity in deaths.”
Other social determinants of health that could have played a role in the outcome disparities here might include the family’s access to transportation options, parental employment or child care options, and nutrition access since baseline nutritional status can be a factor in the outcomes of severe illnesses like sepsis.
”I don’t think this study provided enough information about the potential causative factors to come to any strong conclusions,” Dr. Chomilo said. But it’s important for clinicians to be aware of how biases in the health care system put Black, Indigenous and other communities at higher risk for worse clinical outcomes.
“I would reiterate that clinicians in the hospital can help improve outcomes by being aware of structural racism and structural inequity and how that may contribute to their patient’s risk of severe illness as the decide how to approach their treatment and engaging the patient’s family,” Dr. Chomilo said. “We cannot rely solely on universal tools that don’t take this into account when we are looking to improve clinical outcomes for everyone. Otherwise we will see these gaps persist.”
No external funding sources were noted. Dr. Stroud and Dr. Chomilo had no disclosures.
WASHINGTON – , according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The only other difference between Black and White pediatric patients was the length of hospital stay and the length of time in the ICU among those who died. In both cases, Black children who died spent more time in the hospital and in the ICU, reported Michael H. Stroud, MD, a pediatric critical care physician at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, and his colleagues.
“Further investigations are needed to identify biases, conscious and unconscious, potential socioeconomic factors, and genetic predispositions leading to racial disparities in outcomes of children with pediatric sepsis, severe sepsis, and septic shock,” Dr Stroud and his colleagues said.
Nathan T. Chomilo, MD, adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, who was not involved in the study but reviewed it, said the research “builds upon existing evidence that our health care system has work to do to meet its goal of treating patients equitably and provide everyone the opportunity for health.” He found the racial disparity in death particularly striking in 2023. “In the U.S., with all our wealth, knowledge, and resources, very few children should die from this, let alone there be such a stark gap,” Dr. Chomilo wrote.
Racial disparities persist
Dr. Stroud noted that many institutions currently use “automated, real-time, algorithm-based detection of sepsis, severe sepsis, and septic shock incorporated into the electronic medical record,” which leads to earlier recognition and resuscitation and overall better outcomes. Yet racial disparities in sepsis mortality rates persist, and he and his colleagues wanted to explore whether they remained even with these EMR-incorporated systems.
The researchers analyzed data from all patients at Arkansas Children’s Hospital who had sepsis, severe sepsis, or septic shock between January 2018 and April 2022. The hospital uses a best practice advisory (BPA) in the EMR whose activation leads to a bedside huddle and clinical interventions. For this study, the researchers defined a sepsis episode as either a BPA activation or an EMR diagnosis of sepsis, severe sepsis, or septic shock.
Among the 3,514 patients who had a sepsis episode during the study, 60.5% were White (n = 2,126) and 20.9% were Black (n = 736). Overall mortality was 1.65%, but that included 3.13% of Black children versus 1.27% of White children (odds ratio [OR] 2.51, P = .001). No significant differences in mortality were seen in gender or age.
Clinical interventions in the two groups were also similar: Total IV antibiotic days were 23.8 days for Black children and 21.6 days for White children (P = .38); total vasoactive infusion days were 2.2 for Black children and 2.6 for White (P = .18); and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation was necessary for 26.1% of Black children and 18.5% of White children (P = .52).
Length of hospitalization stay, however, was an average 4 days longer for Black children (16.7 days) versus White children (12.7 days) who died (P = .03). ICU stay for Black children who died was also an average 1.9 days longer (7.57 vs. 5.7 days; P = .01). There were no significant differences in the EMR between Black and White patients, however, in the percent who were over the threshold for antibiotic administration and the percent who received an IV fluid bolus.
Contributing factors
Dr. Chomilo said that most BPA systems require staff – including rooming and triage staff, nurses. and physicians – to enter vital signs, order labs, enter the results into the system, and enter other data used by the algorithm. “So even though the time from when those BPA warnings flagged to when clinical interventions were documented didn’t show a significant difference, there are numerous other points along a child’s illness that may be contributing to these numbers,” Dr. Chomilo said.
For example, he pointed out that differences in health insurance coverage could have influenced whether their parent or caregiver was able to bring them in early enough to be diagnosed since studies have revealed disparate access to regular care due to structural racism in the health care system. Studies have also shown disparate rates of patients being triaged or having to wait longer in emergency departments, he added.
“When the child was brought in, how were they triaged? How long did they wait before they had vitals taken? How long until they were seen by a clinician?” Dr. Chomilo said. “Was their care on the inpatient ward the same or different? What was the source of sepsis? Was it all infectious or other issues [since] cancer and autoimmune illnesses can also trigger a sepsis evaluation, for example? Overall, I suspect answers to several of these questions would reveal a disparity due to structural racism that contributed to the ultimate disparity in deaths.”
Other social determinants of health that could have played a role in the outcome disparities here might include the family’s access to transportation options, parental employment or child care options, and nutrition access since baseline nutritional status can be a factor in the outcomes of severe illnesses like sepsis.
”I don’t think this study provided enough information about the potential causative factors to come to any strong conclusions,” Dr. Chomilo said. But it’s important for clinicians to be aware of how biases in the health care system put Black, Indigenous and other communities at higher risk for worse clinical outcomes.
“I would reiterate that clinicians in the hospital can help improve outcomes by being aware of structural racism and structural inequity and how that may contribute to their patient’s risk of severe illness as the decide how to approach their treatment and engaging the patient’s family,” Dr. Chomilo said. “We cannot rely solely on universal tools that don’t take this into account when we are looking to improve clinical outcomes for everyone. Otherwise we will see these gaps persist.”
No external funding sources were noted. Dr. Stroud and Dr. Chomilo had no disclosures.
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<root generator="drupal.xsl" gversion="1.7"> <header> <fileName>166013</fileName> <TBEID>0C04D54A.SIG</TBEID> <TBUniqueIdentifier>MD_0C04D54A</TBUniqueIdentifier> <newsOrJournal>News</newsOrJournal> <publisherName>Frontline Medical Communications</publisherName> <storyname>AAP: Sepsis mortality</storyname> <articleType>2</articleType> <TBLocation>QC Done-All Pubs</TBLocation> <QCDate>20231117T115007</QCDate> <firstPublished>20231117T124816</firstPublished> <LastPublished>20231117T124816</LastPublished> <pubStatus qcode="stat:"/> <embargoDate/> <killDate/> <CMSDate>20231117T124816</CMSDate> <articleSource>AT AAP 2023</articleSource> <facebookInfo/> <meetingNumber>3199-23</meetingNumber> <byline>Tara Haelle</byline> <bylineText>TARA HAELLE </bylineText> <bylineFull>TARA HAELLE </bylineFull> <bylineTitleText>MDedge News</bylineTitleText> <USOrGlobal/> <wireDocType/> <newsDocType>News</newsDocType> <journalDocType/> <linkLabel/> <pageRange/> <citation/> <quizID/> <indexIssueDate/> <itemClass qcode="ninat:text"/> <provider qcode="provider:imng"> <name>IMNG Medical Media</name> <rightsInfo> <copyrightHolder> <name>Frontline Medical News</name> </copyrightHolder> <copyrightNotice>Copyright (c) 2015 Frontline Medical News, a Frontline Medical Communications Inc. company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, copied, or otherwise reproduced or distributed without the prior written permission of Frontline Medical Communications Inc.</copyrightNotice> </rightsInfo> </provider> <abstract/> <metaDescription>Black children had 2.5 greater odds than White children of dying from sepsis in the hospital, despite no significantly different rates of clinical interventions</metaDescription> <articlePDF/> <teaserImage/> <teaser>The findings reveal how structural racism and inequalities built into the U.S. health care system put Black children and other communities at greater risk for worse outcomes. </teaser> <title>Sepsis mortality greater in Black than White children despite similar interventions</title> <deck/> <disclaimer/> <AuthorList/> <articleURL/> <doi/> <pubMedID/> <publishXMLStatus/> <publishXMLVersion>1</publishXMLVersion> <useEISSN>0</useEISSN> <urgency/> <pubPubdateYear>2023</pubPubdateYear> <pubPubdateMonth/> <pubPubdateDay/> <pubVolume/> <pubNumber/> <wireChannels/> <primaryCMSID/> <CMSIDs/> <keywords/> <seeAlsos/> <publications_g> <publicationData> <publicationCode>PN</publicationCode> <pubIssueName/> <pubArticleType/> <pubTopics/> <pubCategories/> <pubSections/> <journalTitle/> <journalFullTitle/> <copyrightStatement/> </publicationData> <publicationData> <publicationCode>FP</publicationCode> <pubIssueName/> <pubArticleType/> <pubTopics/> <pubCategories/> <pubSections/> <journalTitle/> <journalFullTitle/> <copyrightStatement>Copyright 2017 Frontline Medical News</copyrightStatement> </publicationData> </publications_g> <publications> <term canonical="true">25</term> <term>15</term> </publications> <sections> <term canonical="true">53</term> <term>39313</term> </sections> <topics> <term canonical="true">66772</term> <term>231</term> <term>271</term> </topics> <links/> </header> <itemSet> <newsItem> <itemMeta> <itemRole>Main</itemRole> <itemClass>text</itemClass> <title>Sepsis mortality greater in Black than White children despite similar interventions</title> <deck/> </itemMeta> <itemContent> <p><span class="dateline">WASHINGTON</span> – <span class="tag metaDescription">Black children had 2.5 greater odds than White children of dying from sepsis in the hospital, despite no significantly different rates of clinical interventions</span>, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics.</p> <p>The only other difference between Black and White pediatric patients was the length of hospital stay and the length of time in the ICU among those who died. In both cases, Black children who died spent more time in the hospital and in the ICU, reported <span class="Hyperlink"><a href="https://uamshealth.com/provider/michael-h-stroud/">Michael H. Stroud</a></span>, MD, a pediatric critical care physician at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, and his colleagues. <br/><br/>“Further investigations are needed to identify biases, conscious and unconscious, potential socioeconomic factors, and genetic predispositions leading to racial disparities in outcomes of children with pediatric sepsis, severe sepsis, and septic shock,” Dr Stroud and his colleagues said. <br/><br/><span class="Hyperlink"><a href="https://academyhealth.org/about/people/nathan-t-chomilo-md-faap">Nathan T. Chomilo</a></span>, MD, adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, who was not involved in the study but reviewed it, said the research “builds upon existing evidence that our health care system has work to do to meet its goal of treating patients equitably and provide everyone the opportunity for health.” He found the racial disparity in death particularly striking in 2023. “In the U.S., with all our wealth, knowledge, and resources, very few children should die from this, let alone there be such a stark gap,” Dr. Chomilo wrote. <br/><br/></p> <h2>Racial disparities persist</h2> <p>Dr. Stroud noted that many institutions currently use “automated, real-time, algorithm-based detection of sepsis, severe sepsis, and septic shock incorporated into the electronic medical record,” which leads to earlier recognition and resuscitation and overall better outcomes. Yet racial disparities in sepsis mortality rates persist, and he and his colleagues wanted to explore whether they remained even with these EMR-incorporated systems. </p> <p>The researchers analyzed data from all patients at Arkansas Children’s Hospital who had sepsis, severe sepsis, or septic shock between January 2018 and April 2022. The hospital uses a <span class="Hyperlink"><a href="https://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644(15)00877-X/fulltext#:~:text=Best practice advisories (BPAs) are,emergency department (ED) setting.">best practice advisory</a></span> (BPA) in the EMR whose activation leads to a bedside huddle and clinical interventions. For this study, the researchers defined a sepsis episode as either a BPA activation or an EMR diagnosis of sepsis, severe sepsis, or septic shock. <br/><br/>Among the 3,514 patients who had a sepsis episode during the study, 60.5% were White (n = 2,126) and 20.9% were Black (n = 736). Overall mortality was 1.65%, but that included 3.13% of Black children versus 1.27% of White children (odds ratio [OR] 2.51, <em>P</em> = .001). No significant differences in mortality were seen in gender or age. <br/><br/>Clinical interventions in the two groups were also similar: Total IV antibiotic days were 23.8 days for Black children and 21.6 days for White children (<em>P</em> = .38); total vasoactive infusion days were 2.2 for Black children and 2.6 for White (<em>P</em> = .18); and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation was necessary for 26.1% of Black children and 18.5% of White children (<em>P</em> = .52). <br/><br/>Length of hospitalization stay, however, was an average 4 days longer for Black children (16.7 days) versus White children (12.7 days) who died (<em>P</em> = .03). ICU stay for Black children who died was also an average 1.9 days longer (7.57 vs. 5.7 days; <em>P</em> = .01). There were no significant differences in the EMR between Black and White patients, however, in the percent who were over the threshold for antibiotic administration and the percent who received an IV fluid bolus. <br/><br/></p> <h2>Contributing factors</h2> <p>Dr. Chomilo said that most BPA systems require staff – including rooming and triage staff, nurses. and physicians – to enter vital signs, order labs, enter the results into the system, and enter other data used by the algorithm. “So even though the time from when those BPA warnings flagged to when clinical interventions were documented didn’t show a significant difference, there are numerous other points along a child’s illness that may be contributing to these numbers,” Dr. Chomilo said.</p> <p>For example, he pointed out that differences in health insurance coverage could have influenced whether their parent or caregiver was able to bring them in early enough to be diagnosed since studies have revealed disparate access to regular care due to structural racism in the health care system. Studies have also shown disparate rates of patients being triaged or having to wait longer in emergency departments, he added. <br/><br/>“When the child was brought in, how were they triaged? How long did they wait before they had vitals taken? How long until they were seen by a clinician?” Dr. Chomilo said. “Was their care on the inpatient ward the same or different? What was the source of sepsis? Was it all infectious or other issues [since] cancer and autoimmune illnesses can also trigger a sepsis evaluation, for example? Overall, I suspect answers to several of these questions would reveal a disparity due to structural racism that contributed to the ultimate disparity in deaths.” <br/><br/>Other social determinants of health that could have played a role in the outcome disparities here might include the family’s access to transportation options, parental employment or child care options, and nutrition access since baseline nutritional status can be a factor in the outcomes of severe illnesses like sepsis. <br/><br/>”I don’t think this study provided enough information about the potential causative factors to come to any strong conclusions,” Dr. Chomilo said. But it’s important for clinicians to be aware of how biases in the health care system put Black, Indigenous and other communities at higher risk for worse clinical outcomes.<br/><br/>“I would reiterate that clinicians in the hospital can help improve outcomes by being aware of structural racism and structural inequity and how that may contribute to their patient’s risk of severe illness as the decide how to approach their treatment and engaging the patient’s family,” Dr. Chomilo said. “We cannot rely solely on universal tools that don’t take this into account when we are looking to improve clinical outcomes for everyone. Otherwise we will see these gaps persist.”<br/><br/>No external funding sources were noted. Dr. Stroud and Dr. Chomilo had no disclosures. </p> </itemContent> </newsItem> <newsItem> <itemMeta> <itemRole>teaser</itemRole> <itemClass>text</itemClass> <title/> <deck/> </itemMeta> <itemContent> </itemContent> </newsItem> </itemSet></root>
AT AAP 2023