Six surgical procedures account for most pediatric postoperative hospital and ED visits, according to a research letter published in JAMA. Fizan Abdullah, MD, PhD, and colleagues examined revisit rates across nine pediatric surgical subspecialties. The analysis included data from the Pediatric Health Information System (52 tertiary children’s hospitals) on children who underwent one of 26 inpatient or ambulatory procedures (1.2 million index procedures) during 2016-2020. The researchers identified 88,796 revisits, of which 43.63% were to the ED only. The highest number of revisits occurred after tonsillectomy/ adenoidectomy (N=18,279), while central venous catheter (CVC)/port insertion had the highest revisit rate (41.45%). The most ED-only visits occurred after tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy and appendectomy. Otolaryngology and general pediatric surgery accounted for 77.58% of the revisit prevalence and 74.32% of the ED-only visit prevalence. Six procedures within the otolaryngology and general pediatric surgery specialties—including tonsillectomy/ adenoidectomy, appendectomy, CVC/port insertion, gastrostomy, myringotomy/tympanostomy, and circumcision—accounted for 67.77% of all revisits and 63.08% of ED-only visits.
