Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of PICTURE-Pediatric

PICTURE Pediatric evaluates large amounts of patient data, labs, monitored data, and vital signs (all variables that are measured as part of routine clinical care and that are stored in the electronic health record in real-time); it does this every 15-minutes and delivers a deterioration risk index score that has been shown to outperform Pediatric Early Warning Score (PEWS), and other similar scoring systems in identifying patients at risk for clinical deterioration. Clinical implementation of PICTURE Pediatric could identify patients at high risk of deterioration early enough to intervene and decrease the need for transfer to the Pediatric Intensive Care unit (PICU), and it could also reduce morbidity and hospital length of stay. This in turn could also improve bed availability for patients awaiting admission in the emergency department and improve efficient transfer out of the PICU, all of which improves care and reduces cost for the patients, their families, and the hospital system.

This protocol also does not mandate or require clinical decisions based on alerts generated (e.g. there is no mandate to transfer to the Intensive Care unit, perform an intervention, or change therapy/clinical course based on PICTURE alerts); rather, the clinical team will decide whether additional investigation, therapy, intervention, or transfer is required after alerts are generated based on staff's clinical experience, knowledge and with consultation with an attending physician when applicable. In case of device failure, there would be no deterioration risk scores generated and the clinical teams would simply continue to follow the current workflow.