Children's Mercy Hospital

Optimizing Antibiotic Duration for Pneumonia and Sinusitis in the Pediatric Emergency Department

OBJECTIVE Updates to national and international guidelines now recommend shortening antibiotic durations to 3 to 5 days for uncomplicated community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and 5 to 7 days for acute bacterial rhinosinusitis (ABRS). We aimed to increase the percentage of children...

An international multicenter analysis of the outcome of pediatric first variceal hemorrhage

Background & Aims: Management of portal hypertension in children including primary prophylaxis of variceal bleeding is controversial due to limited understanding of mortality risk after first variceal hemorrhage (1VH). This international multicenter study was designed to advance...

Medicaid utilization in children: Condition‐specific incidence and spending

Abstract Medicaid insures over half of US children, yet gaps remain in understanding how funds are allocated across the care of nonchronic conditions, the care of chronic conditions, and preventative services. We conducted a retrospective analysis of 7.2 million Medicaid‐enrolled...

Development of an Achievable Benchmarks of Care Report Card for Pediatric Hospital Medicine

OBJECTIVES: To develop an Achievable Benchmarks of Care (ABCs) report card for common conditions managed by pediatric hospital medicine (PHM). METHODS: We performed a retrospective cross-sectional study of encounters for 13 common pediatric conditions between January 1, 2023, and...

Sex-dependent effects of neonatal hyperoxia on prefrontal cortex development

Premature infants often require supplemental oxygen therapy, a major risk factor for bronchopulmonary dysplasia and subsequent neurodevelopmental impairment. To determine how neonatal hyperoxia affects prefrontal cortex (PFC) development, we exposed neonatal mice to 85% oxygen (O...

Urinary Tract Infection Diagnosis—A Companion to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ 2026 Clinical Practice Guideline on the Diagnosis and Management of Urinary Tract Infection: Technical Report

Accurate diagnosis is essential to appropriate care. Although urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common bacterial infections in children, there is no gold standard for its diagnosis. During the American Academy of Pediatrics' revision of its Clinical Practice Guidel...

Clinical Practice Guideline for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Urinary Tract Infection in Children From 8 Days to 5 Years of Age

Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common bacterial infections in infants and young children, with a prevalence of 7% in infants with fever. This clinical practice guideline (CPG) provides an update of the literature and clinical recommendations of the 2011 American...

Disparities in Reporting of Violent Events by Patients at a US Children’s Hospital

BACKGROUND: Violence toward health care workers is increasing, yet patient risk factors for having a reported violent event (VE) are unknown. Understanding patient risk factors associated with reported VEs is needed to inform equitable approaches to VE reporting and guide resourc...

Promoting Health Equity Through Tax-Funded Zero-Fare Public Transit: A Survey of Voters From Kansas City, MO

Public transportation has positive impacts for both individual and community health, but funding and scalability are political challenges. Understanding civic processes, such as voting, is key to advancing health equity through large-scale policy change. The purpose of this study...

Patient‐Specific Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling of Airway Collapse in Infants With Robin Sequence

ABSTRACT Robin Sequence (RS) is a congenital condition in which patients experience dynamic, periodic obstruction or collapse of the upper airway due to an underdeveloped jaw and a posteriorly displaced tongue. Current clinical techniques for evaluating airway obstruction do not...

Sociodemographic and Clinical Factors Associated With Nirsevimab Receipt Among Children Aged Younger Than 20 Months in the New Vaccine Surveillance Network in 2023 to 2025

OBJECTIVES: We aim to evaluate the association of sociodemographic and clinical factors with nirsevimab receipt among children with medically attended acute respiratory illness (ARI) across multiple seasons and beyond birth hospitalization. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We included nirse...

E-cigarette use and nicotine dependence among hospitalized youth: influence of nicotine metabolism and CYP2A6 variability

Background Youth e-cigarette use is a public health concern, yet cessation approaches remain suboptimal. In adults, faster nicotine metabolism is linked with better cessation outcomes with varenicline compared to nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). This remains unexplored in yout...

Empiric MRSA Coverage for Children with Osteoarticular Infections: 2015 to 2024

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Staphylococcus aureus is the most common causative pathogen for children with acute hematogenous osteomyelitis (AHO) and acute bacterial arthritis (ABA). National guidelines recommend empiric coverage for methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) at hospita...

Children With Complex Chronic Conditions in the Child Protective Services

OBJECTIVES: Little is known about the prevalence and outcomes for children with complex chronic conditions (CCCs) in the Child Protective Services (CPS) system. We aimed to determine the prevalence and associations of CCC designation across CPS outcomes and years among a group of...

Exploring Training Needs to Facilitate Shared Decision Making in Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis Symptom Management and the Use of the JIA Option Map

Objectives Our team developed the JIA Option Map, a web-based patient decision aid (PDA) designed to support shared decision-making (SDM) for juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) symptom management. Since training for health care providers (HCP) can enhance SDM and the use of PDAs...

Exploring Decisional Factors to Include Approaches in a Patient Decision Aid for Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis Symptom Management

Objectives Youth with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) experience physical and mental health symptoms that negatively impact their participation in daily life activities. The JIA Option Map is a web-based patient decision aid (PDA) created to facilitate decision-making for JIA...