O2184: Development of Quality Measures for the Care of Children in the Urgent Care Setting​

Purpose/Objectives: The urgent care industry has witnessed substantial growth over the past decade, with an uptick in children utilizing urgent care. A quarter of children have at least one urgent care visit per year, but only 8% of all urgent cares are specialized for children, indicating a sizable portion of children receive care in settings without pediatric expertise. Children's distinct healthcare needs require specific considerations due to physiological and developmental differences, resulting in varied treatment approaches compared to adults for similar medical conditions. Despite the industry's growth, few universal quality metrics exist for urgent care practices. Previously proposed measures remain undeveloped and lack relevance to pediatric urgent care.

This project marks the inaugural endeavor to develop pediatric metrics tailored explicitly for the urgent care setting. It describes the methodology employed in formulating and prioritizing key quality metrics. These specialized metrics encompass accurate diagnoses, timely interventions, suitable treatments, and compliance with pediatric care standards

Design/Methods: Formulation of Metrics: A number of quality metrics exist for pediatric outpatient care. We sourced our initial list of metrics from publicly available information from US Children's Hospitals, government agencies and metrics used at our institution.

Value Set definitions: It is imperative that data elements utilized for metrics are well defined so that results are reliable and consistent. When available, ICD-10 codes were accessed from the National Library of Medicine Value Set Authority Center. When metrics did not have an existing value set, we derived and defined one from the most common ICD-10 codes available.

Expert Review: A panel of Pediatric UC and Quality Improvement experts was convened to prioritize metrics for further development and Benchmarking

Results:

Results:
A comprehensive, prioritized list of key pediatric urgent care clinical metrics are proposed to be utilized to assess the quality of pediatric care in all urgent care centers, not just those that focus on pediatrics.

Conclusion/Discussion: The absence of pertinent clinical measures emphasizes the imperative need for pediatric-specific quality metrics to optimize care. Future projects will include proposal of achievable benchmarks for specific quality metrics, to enhance pediatric healthcare delivery in urgent care settings.