This national quality improvement project is an effort to develop a multicenter registry on the perioperative anesthesia course and management of children undergoing surgery for chest wall deformities.   While chest wall deformities in children are relatively common (approximately 1 out of every 400 births), corrective surgery remains complex.  There is significant debate as to which pain control methodology is best.  Moreover, there is reluctance in any one institution to trial or randomize patients to a variety of treatment modalities.  Hence, we are developing a multi-institutional data sharing in which up to 20 participating medical centers are collaborating to better understand the outcomes of perioperative care for patients having corrective surgery.

Our primary objective is to create a multicenter registry which captures information relating to anesthesia course and management and to examine the practice patterns and incidence of complications. Data from any single institution will be used for local safety and quality improvement efforts.  Data from each institution can be compared to the information from all institutions, thus providing a measure for comparison with national practice. The aggregate multi-institutional data set will be used to develop quality benchmarks for national safety/quality improvement efforts and best practice recommendations.  This registry will also demonstrate how web-based data collection can be used to evaluate clinical anesthesia outcomes for surgeries with a low incidence of critical events but significant variability in medical management.

Approved Clinical Research Documentation:

• BCH Approved Institutional Review Board Application
• BCH Informed Consent Form for Adults, Parents and Families
• BCH Assent Form for Youth
• BCH Project Brochure
• BCH Presentation for Providers and Interested Collaborators

Project Status:

Enrollment for this project is closed. Investigators are collecting follow-up data only.

Our Collaborators:

Sponsor:  Society for Pediatric Anesthesia Quality and Safety Committee

• All Children’s Hospital, St. Petersburg, FL:  Allison Fernandez, MD
• Children’s Hospital Colorado, CO:  Seth Eisdorfer, MD; Alan Bielsky, MD; James J. Thomas, MD
• Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, CA:  Giovanni Cucciaro, MD
• Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, PA:  Lynne G. Maxwell, AB, MD;  Wallis T. Muhly, MD
• Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, NH:  Jennifer E. O’Flaherty, MD;  Christopher Chin, MD
• Dupont Hospital for Children, DE:  Dinesh K. Choudhry, MD, FRCA
• Emory University School of Medicine, GA:  Carolyn Bannister, MD, FAAP
• Johns Hopkins Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s Center, MD:  Sabine Kost-Byerly, MD
• Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, MN:  Dawit T. Haile, MD;  Robert T. Wilder, MD, PhD
• Medical University of South Carolina: Gregory D. Schnepper, MD
• Nationwide Children’s Hospital: Tarun Bhalla, MD; Ralph J. Beltran, MD; Jseph D. Tobias, MD
• Texas Children’s Hospital, TX:  Chris Darrel Glover, MD;  Imelda Tjia, MD