Short-term hospitalizations in pediatric services.

Analyzing the causes and characteristics of hospitalizations is essential for health management. The identification of potentially avoidable hospitalizations, contributes to improve health care quality. The purpose of this article is to describe the frequency and characteristics of short-term hospitalizations in a Pediatric Service. This is a descriptive, retrospective study. Short-term hospitalizations (less than 24 hs) were reviewed in patients younger than 15 years old who were admitted from the Emergency Service from September 1, 2013 to August 31, 2014. Age, diagnosis, laboratory tests, specialist evaluation and treatment were analyzed. Of 1832 hospitalized patients, 34% had short-term hospitalizations. The average stay was 13 hours. The most frequent diagnosis were head trauma, bronchial-obstructive crises with respiratory failure, gastroenteritis, abdominal pain and seizures. Most of short-term hospitalizations are due to acute diseases that require observation and/or supervised treatment. Organizing an emergency room observation unit, as well as applying protocolized treatments could contribute to improve health care efficiency. We conclude that a significant proportion of short-term hospitalizations in this pediatric service are due to acute entities that could be solved in the Emergency Department with clinical follow-up and supervised treatments. The implementation of an observation area for these patients could be an appropriate strategy to rationalize their medical care.