Children’s Hospital Association Releases Children’s Hospitals Landscape Report
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) released a report that offers a high-level look at hospital utilization measures. Key metrics were obtained from 50 U.S. children’s hospitals through CHA’s Pediatric Health Information System (PHIS®) database.
“Children's hospitals play an essential role in kids' health and well-being by providing specialized care, crucial research, essential education, and vital community outreach. However, when it comes to operational metrics, children's hospitals are often benchmarked against adult hospitals that provide pediatric care,” said Torey Mack, MD, Chief Medical Officer of CHA. “To better inform the public, the Children's Hospitals Landscape Report offers a high-level look at industry trends specific to children's hospitals. This data will be extremely useful for organizations to benchmark performance against the children’s hospitals industry as a whole.”
The report features key volume metrics, including: inpatient discharges, inpatient and observation cases, surgical cases, emergency department visits, and case mix index, a measure of patient severity. The data includes aggregated quarterly data from 2019 through the fourth quarter of 2023.
CHA’s report shows that:
- Inpatient and ED volumes have remained stable for the past two years at levels consistent with 2019 volumes.
- Surgical cases have taken longer to recover after the pandemic and appear to be normalizing at similar or slightly higher volumes compared with 2019.
- During the pandemic, patient volumes dropped and only the sickest kids continued to be seen at children’s hospitals. As volumes returned after the pandemic, measures of inpatient severity remain elevated compared with 2019, indicating a slightly sicker cohort of patients now vs 2019.
- Measures indicate children’s hospitals in the West and Northeast regions may have had a different experience over the last three year compared to those in the Midwest and South.
About Children's Hospital Association
Children’s Hospital Association is the national voice of more than 200 children’s hospitals, advancing child health through innovation in the quality, cost and delivery of care.
