Measuring quality and outcomes in pediatric cardiac critical care

Measuring quality and outcomes in the pediatric cardiac critical care environment is challenging due to many inherent obstacles. These include a diverse patient mix, difficulty in determining how the care of the intensive care unit team contributes to outcomes and lack of an adequate risk-adjustment method for pediatric cardiac critical care patients. Despite these barriers, new solutions are emerging that capitalizes on lessons learned from other quality improvement initiatives and provide opportunities to build on those successes. The infrastructure is in place to develop robust quality metrics, create benchmarks for patient outcomes and to determine the structures and processes that drive variation in outcomes in the pediatric cardiac critical care setting.