Factors Associated With Family Experience in Pediatric Inpatient Care

BACKGROUND: Hospitals are rapidly increasing efforts to improve the pediatric inpatient experience. However, hospitals often do not know what to target for improvement. To determine what matters most to families, we assessed which aspects of experience have the strongest relationships with parents’ willingness to recommend a hospital. METHODS: Cross-sectional study of 17 727 surveys completed from November 2012 to January 2014 by parents of children hospitalized at 69 hospitals in 34 states using the Child Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey. Hierarchical logistic regressions predicted the “top box” for willingness to recommend from measures of specific care dimensions (nurse-parent communication, doctor-parent communication, communication about medicines, keeping parents informed about the child’s care, privacy with providers, preparing to leave the hospital, mistakes and concerns, child comfort, cleanliness, and quietness), adjusting for parent-child characteristics. Relative importance was assessed by using partially standardized adjusted odds ratios (aORs). RESULTS: Child comfort (aOR 1.50; 95% confidence interval 1.41–1.60) and nurse-parent communication (aOR 1.50; 95% confidence interval 1.42–1.58) showed the strongest relationships with willingness to recommend, followed by preparing to leave the hospital, doctor-parent communication, and keeping parents informed. Privacy and quietness were not significantly associated with willingness to recommend in multivariate analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Our study uncovered highly valued dimensions that are distinct to pediatric care. Hospitals that care for children should consider using dedicated pediatric instruments to measure and track their performance. Improvement efforts should focus on creating an age-appropriate environment, improving the effectiveness of provider interactions, and engaging parents to share their values and concerns.