Pediatric Procedural Sedation: No Effect of Provider Specialty on Complication Rates

To determine whether rates of major complications during pediatric procedural sedation vary by provider specialty, researchers prospectively collected data from 38 hospitals in Canada and the U.S. between 2004 and 2008. Procedures were performed in a dedicated hospital-based pediatric sedation service. Major complications were defined as aspiration, death, cardiac arrest, unplanned hospital admission or level-of-care increase, or emergency anesthesia consultation.

Among 131,751 cases of procedural sedation in children (age range, 0–18 years), there were 122 major complications and no deaths. Major complication rates per 10,000 sedations were 7.6 for anesthesiologists, 7.8 for pediatric emergency medicine physicians, 9.6 for pediatric intensi…