Freeing Up Pediatric Hospital Beds During a Large-Scale Disaster

Reverse triage, in which inpatients are discharged early based on risk stratification in order to open bed space during a large-scale disaster, has been studied only in the adult setting.

Using a retrospective cohort design, researchers assessed eligibility for safe early discharge among 501 randomly sampled pediatric inpatients in one children's medical center during 196 mock disaster days. Multiple units (medical, surgical, intensive care, burn, oncology, research, psychiatric) were sampled equally. Risk stratification was based on patient need for minor, moderate, or major pediatric critical intervention (PCI). Eligibility for early discharge was defined as needing no PCI for 4 days after the mock disaster.

Surge capacity — the percentage …