Regional variation in antenatal corticosteroid use: a network-level quality improvement study.

ABSTRACT:

Background and objectives

Examination of regional care patterns in antenatal corticosteroid use (ACU) rates may be salient for the development of targeted interventions. Our objective was to assess network-level variation using California perinatal care regions as a proxy. We hypothesized that (1) significant variation in ACU exists within and between California perinatal care regions, and (2) lower performing regions exhibit greater NICU-level variability in ACU than higher performing regions.

Methods

We undertook cross-sectional analysis of 33,610 very low birth weight infants cared for at 120 hospitals in 11 California perinatal care regions from 2005 to 2011. We computed risk-adjusted median ACU rates and interquartile ranges (IQR) for each perinatal care region. The deg

SUBMITTER: Profit J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4306799 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature