Outcomes in pediatric anesthesia: towards a universal language

Abstract

Purpose of review The identification of valid, well defined and relevant outcomes is fundamental to provide a reliable and replicable measure that can be used to improve quality of clinical care and research output. The purpose of this review is to provide an update on what the pediatric anesthesia research community is pursuing on standardized and validated outcomes. Recent findings Several initiatives by different research groups have been established during the last years. They all aim to find validated outcomes using the standardized methodology of COMET (https://www.comet-initiative.org/). These initiatives focus on clinical and research outcomes on the field of anesthesia, perioperative medicine, pain and sedation in pediatric age. Summary Clinical outcomes are measurements of changes in health, function or quality of life and they help evaluating quality of care. In order for them to be relevant in quantifying quality improvement, they need to be well defined, standardized and consistent across trials. A great effort from researchers has been made towards the identification of set of outcomes with these features.